


Can't you see we got a good thing here

by merperson1



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fairytale AU ish, M/M, Mutual Pining, also a fun little experiment to see if something can somehow both be instalove and slow burn, if by enemies you mean annoying roommates, like there's still Weird Shit but it's less horror and more magic ya know, we made it lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26300953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merperson1/pseuds/merperson1
Summary: Jon's new place is too good (or, well not good, but cheap) too be true, and the caveat comes in the form of an unwelcome roommateaka: Martin IS a ghost in this bad boy
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 180
Kudos: 283





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jonny: these characters aren't much for swearing and they aren't all close friends with each other  
> Me in every TMA au I write: I can't hear u jonny. my city now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is from "ghost story" by Charming Disaster lmao

There had to be a catch. _Obviously_ there was a catch. Maybe nothing in the lease agreement was explicitly terrible, but the flat had to be hiding black mold or a burgeoning spider infestation or the blood stains of a murder victim. _Something._

When Jon had inquired about the suspiciously low rent, especially compared to his neighbors’, the landlord shrugged and cheerfully said something about “bad vibes”. So, murder, probably. _Plus,_ while the flat didn’t actually reveal of the things Jon has suspected, it was chillier than it had any right to be, so at the very least the place was drafty. The main problem, however, is that Jon found he didn’t particularly care about any of the noticeable red flags. Instead, he found himself signing a six month lease. Cold murder flat it may be, but it was also a: in central London b:bigger than a broom closet and c: the only place he could afford with his new, significantly lower salary that didn’t require two hours of commute or six roommates. If he dies, at least he won’t die on cramped public transport.

For the first several weeks, the flat does nothing to reveal why it only costs 400 a month, and Jon starts to feel like he’s the one that’s gotten away with something. Sure, the water pressure leaves something to be desired, the AGA likes to make a fuss, and there’s some consistent cold patches (his least favorite being the one near the couch, which would be wonderfully comfortable if could get just a little bit _warm_ ), but over all, he’s lived in much worse places for much higher prices. He can’t really complain about the actual building.

He can, however, complain that the move seems to have him more scatterbrained than usual. Things he has no memory of moving are getting misplaced with alarming frequency. Especially mugs. Why mugs? No matter how hard he tries, he just can not seem to keep them on their mug rack, instead accumulating on the coffee table by the couch he doesn’t even _use._ Perhaps they were staging a revolt against him, sick of the many, many stains brought on by over-steeped tea.

Still, despite the inconveniences, his living situation is perfectly fine. He’s able to shower, eat, sleep, and occasionally even relax. He’s not going into debt and he doesn’t have to call the rather unsettling landlord for repairs. The scenario is really the best he could’ve asked for.

That is, of course, until he starts hearing The Voice.

Just under two months into his stay, he begins to hear clipped of words, incomplete fragments of sentences that he can’t make sense of. During the first night, he just assumes it’s a trick of the architecture allowing for him to catch snippets of his neighbors’ chatting. Why would a place this cheap have decent soundproofing? The walls were thin enough to let in the cold, certainly they didn’t stop talking either.

It doesn’t explain why the voices started suddenly, or why he can hear his neighbors muffled conversation just fine, or why said conversation sounds entirely unlike the stutters that appear to be coming from right next to him, but it is enough to let him sleep through a couple nights.

On the fourth day he unplugs his TV, turns off his phone, and shuts down his laptop. Anything that could possibly produce sound is cut off from its power source in the hopes that the source of The Voice is simply a piece of malfunctioning tech. He’ll figure out _which_ one is causing the issue later, but right now he just needs the quiet.

And he gets it. For about 2 hours. Just long enough to lull him into a false sense of security and allow himself a pat on the back for having brilliantly figured it out. Of course, the second he fully relaxes, “--ou ---roga-----er, I---eli---” comes through crystal clear.

Isn’t that just perfect.

After a week, he’s narrowed down the source of The Voice to a select few possibilities:

1\. his brain has decided to truly and properly work against him

2\. there is the presence of, as the kids say, “spooky magic bullshit” if by kids you’re referring to Jon’s former coworker Tim, who is seven years his senior

3\. someone has decided to fuck with him, perhaps the aforementioned Tim

4\. In the confines of his tiny box flat someone else has somehow managed to move in with him

5\. Some unholy combination of the above

It happens to be a day off, so he spends the next several hours tearing through every conceivable nook and cranny of the place, he finds neither any hidden microphones nor any signs of life that didn’t belong to himself, except for maybe a tea stain on the couch he doesn’t remember putting there. It’s mildly concerning, but it’s far from enough evidence to make “secret home invader” in the realm of possibility. He does, however, hear The Voice say something along the lines of “What --------wrong --- you?”, which, god, wouldn’t they both like to know. No matter, he mentally crosses “elaborate prank” and “hidden roommate” off of the list of possibilities. While he’s grateful that he won’t have to physically force someone out of his flat and that no one appears to feel that convicted towards making his life difficult, the remaining options are far from comforting.

A week and a half into this whole ordeal, The Voice, with crystal clear annoyance, says, “Fucking _christ,”_ right before a throw pillow seemingly lifts of its own accord and hits Jon squarely in the chest.

Ah.

Right then.

Logically, he should be afraid. There is, in fact, _something_ in his flat, and it can manipulate its physical surroundings. And swear at him. Sure, there hadn’t been any real threat yet, but these things have a tendency to escalate. Instead, there’s an exhausted resignation that settles deep into his bones. Spooky. Magic. Bullshit. What he wouldn’t have given for it to have been black mold instead.

He makes the executive decision to make a swift exit from his apartment in order to prevent him from being further... haunted? Cursed? Infested? _Magicked,_ and makes a swift call to his recent ex-workplace.

“Magnus Institute archives, Tim Stoker speaking. What can I do ya for?”

Despite his current predicament, he finds himself smiling. While he absolutely doesn’t regret leaving the institute, he can admit to himself that he misses a certain level of workplace camaraderie. “I have a sneaking suspicion that that’s not actually the scripted greeting.”

Gone is the polite, falsely chipper service voice, a genuinely chipper and excitable voice taking its place. “Jon! My darling Jon, the one who got away! How the hell are you? Rolling in all that audio-book narration dough?”

“It _is_ a deeply lucrative field, I’m only in a shoddy one bedroom due to personal choice. Keeps me humble.”

“You _did_ always have a problem with humility. Seriously, though, you’re not miserable over there, right? Or more miserable than the general Jon baseline?”

“Oh! No, no, nothing like that, once again, thank you for the recommendation. However, I _do_ seem to be having an issue with the flat. Would you mind coming over after work?”

Tim asks, “Mr. _Sims,_ are you _propositioning_ me? While I’m at my place of _employment?_ ,” specifically because he knows Jon absolutely isn’t. It breaks apart some of Jon’s nerves towards asking for help, but he still thinks Tim is a deeply ludicrous man.

Voice as flat as he can possibly make it, Jon replies, “Yes, absolutely. Please, daddy, come and throughly ravish me.”

Tim lets out a sharp bark of laughter even as he says, “Holy shit, _please_ never say the word “daddy” again. That’s going to haunt me for years.”

“I believe I can manage that. But, er, could you actually come over? And perhaps bring Sasha? You’ve- you’ve been studying magic detection the past couple of years, correct?”

Tim’s tone becomes more somber to match Jon’s own, but his words hardly get any less ridiculous. “Well uh oh spaghettios Jonathan, what exactly have you gotten yourself into?”

Leaning hard against his front door, Jon lets out a sigh and briefly pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know how I turned down the archivist position because I didn’t want to get caught up in nightmarish mysteries?”

“I thought it was because there was a spider in the office when Elias offered you the gig, and you have that whole grand conspiracy theory about archanids, but sure.”

“It’s not a _conspiracy theory,_ it’s well-documented that-,” Jon takes a moment to reorient himself, “Anyway, guess who’s in the middle of a nightmarish conspiracy?”

“Oh my god.”

“Some.. _thing_ that I’ve been hearing for the past week and a half but can’t see is in my flat. It threw a pillow at me.”

“ _Oh my god._ Yeah, okay, that sounds not super great. Me ‘n Sash will be over in, shit, about 45 minutes? And, uh, maybe don’t spend that time in your flat? Not saying that anything _would_ happen but..”

“But better safe than sorry, I agree. There’s a cafe right across the street from my place, we could meet up there?”

“Sure thing! Oh, and, one more thing?”

“Mmm?”

“You have my number, did you only call the work line in order to piss off Elias? Because if so, I might actually have to respect you.”

Tim wasn’t wrong, Jon _had_ been aware of the fact that Elias absolutely despises work phones being used for personal use, but where’s the fun in agreeing. “I’m afraid you’ll have to withhold that respect, I only called this number in the hopes that Sasha would pick up and I wouldn’t have to deal with you.”

Tim’s snort on the other end of the line shows how deeply wounded he clearly is. “Asshole. Also _liar,_ you and I both know Sasha’s never picked up the work phone after 4:30 in her life. Just for that you’re buying me a croissant.”

“Hmm. A rather cruel punishment, though I suppose it’s befitting for the crime. Now get off the phone before Sasha yells at you.”

“Sasha would never, she likes me far too much. Plus I’m a good 73% that she’s playing Bejeweled right now, so it’d be a rather pot kettle scenario. Anyway, good _bye_ Jon, see you soon, don’t get murdered by spooky magic bullshit.”

“I will endeavor not to. Goodbye Tim.”

Only 33 minutes later, Sasha and Tim arrive, Tim looking forcibly casual and Sasha wearing her worry plainly. When they spot him in the cafe, she gives him a tight but genuine smile, which is all the warning he gets before the envelop him in a hug. He pretends to me put out. “This hardly seems necessary.”

Sing song, Tim says, “We miiisssseeddd yooouuuu,” and Sasha adds a faux sniffly, “You broke up the 3 musketeers! Now our reunions have to be dramatic.”

Jon rolls his eyes, but he also wraps his arms around theirs and can’t help but notice the knot in his stomach that’s been present since he first heard The Voice significantly loosens. After they let go of him, he buys Tim his promised croissant, as well as Sasha a Danish, before the three of them promptly head back over to his flat.

As all three of them approach the front door, the air seems to become noticeably heavier. No one wants to make the first move, and Jon can hardly blame them. God, he had no idea of it would be better or worse if Tim _was_ actually able to detect something going on, if Sasha did have a supernatural explanation for him, or if was actually nothing, his mind just playing tricks on him. He hoped it wasn’t the fae. The fae tended to be particularly nasty. Sucking in a breath and squaring his shoulders, he steps forward and opens the front door. As he’s going to enter, however, Tim quickly barges past him, apparently electing to take the brunt of the danger. If Jon was made of something more than frayed nerves and paranoid fears right now, he’d be annoyed by Tim’s apparent bravado. As is, he just kind of watches as Tim crosses the barrier into the flat and immediately gets the wind knocked out of him. The man stumbles back slightly, takes a moment to recollect himself, then exits the flat as quickly as he had entered. Back out in the hallway, Tim slams the door closed, and seemingly barricades his body between his compatriots and the entrance. There’s a concerning gleam to his eyes, and his voice is pitched several notes too high for him to be nearly as calm as he pretends to be. “So, hey, fun fact! I don’t have any roommates, no one to oppose any maybe Jon sized people crashing on the pull out bed in the living room while this hypothetical person does some urgent apartment hunting. I also have quite the nest egg saved up and know a good lawyer or too should someone, say, have to break a lease and break a lease fast!”

Huh. Jon tries not to be overly worried by Tim’s reaction, but he’s also known Tim to be relatively unflappable. If he’s freaked out, it stands to reason that Jon should be freaked out as well, which in turn means that they are actually, potentially, dealing with something dangerous. “And why exactly should this hypothetical person be flat hunting and quickly breaking lease agreements?”

“Look, okay, so I’m by no means all that great at magical detection, right? Basically unless whatever magical fuckery is giving off a super strong signal, it can still slip under my particular radar. I figured if we came here I’d find, at best, an enchanted medallion or some shit. Instead I walked into a goddamn _wall_ of energy. Hate to break it to ya buddy, but your apartment is cursed as shit.”

“Well that’s...less than ideal. Tim, is there anything more specific you might be able to tell be past very powerful and “cursed as shit”?”

Tim shrugs, telling him, “Sorry, I’ve barely gotten the detection thing going, if you want arcane knowledge I’m the wrong guy to ask.”

Jon tries not to feel frustrated by that, and he has to remind himself he’s far from out of resources. He turns towards Sasha, who’s eyebrows are furrowed as she stares into the middle distance. “Sasha? Any further insights?”

She blinks back into awareness, then gives a brief hum. “Mm, maybe. I’d need a few more details on what’s actually been going on in your flat prior to our visit, though.”

Jon quickly recounts the events of the past several days, and Sasha listens with rapt attention. After he’s done, she nods for a moment, and then her eyes roll back in her head. Letting out a yelp he’s not particularly proud of, he rushes to catch her, but she stays perfectly upright. In fact, her body language stays nonplussed and the white of her eyes is replaced with a glowing green, and that same glowing green opens into the symbol of an additional eye right above her forehead. The pupil of the symbolic eye scans back and forth for about 20 seconds, before once again closing. Sasha’s actual eyes roll back forward, once again their original color, and after a brief stumble, she pats herself off and seems to return to normal. “It’s a ghost.”

That’s...all of that’s….”What?”

With a wave of her hand, Sasha elaborates, “A ghost. Apparition. Spirit. Poltergeist, if it’s particularly cranky. Ghoul? No, that’s something slightly different. Anyway, you get the gist.”

There’s about 17 well-articulated, topically relevant, and generally meaningful questions rattling around Jon’s skull right now. What comes out is, “Ghosts aren’t real.”

This comment earns him dual stares from Tim and Sasha, as if _he_ was the one that had temporarily sprouted a third eye. The tension doesn’t last long before Tim breaks it with a, “Jon, _babe,”_ and starts to tick off his fingers. “Curses, magic, mages, witches, fae, fairies, and werewolves are all decidedly, irrefutably, conclusively real. _Ghosts_ are where your suspension of disbelief ends?”

Crossing his arms and feeling oddly defensive for the one who’s objectively the least odd one here, Jon retorts, “You’ll note that zombies, vampires, and necromancers are notably absent from that list. In my experience, the dead have this remarkable ability to stay dead.”

Tim seems to consider his point, but Sasha shrugs and says, “I dunno what to tell you dude, it’s a ghost.”

Shoving down the urge to start rubbing at his temples, Jon deflates a bit and asks, “How- how do you know that? What was the whole, “ he gestures vaguely at his face, “thing?”

“Oh yeah! Turns out, becoming head archivist involves mage training, so looks like you missed out on that one. Or maybe you dodged a bullet? Matter of perspective, I suppose. Anyway, I’m not super far along, but right now I can scan through all the statements in the archives, like, _really_ really fast. I compared your experience to all of our other accounts of strongly cursed locations, and survey says it’s a ghost.”

Tim jumps in on the conversation then. “And as cool and freaky as Sasha’s new powers are, and they are very much both of those things, survey _also_ says that cursed as shit ghosts are also generally not to be fucked with, lest you also become a cursed as shit ghost, so we should really be boogieing on out.”

“No.”

Jon is surprised at both the conviction in his voice and the conviction in his spirit that matches it.

With a causal roll of his shoulder, Tim says, “All right. We can find you a hotel to crash at instead, I’m pretty sure the cafe has wifi.”

Filled with a sense of bravery, or perhaps just stubborness, that Jon can’t name the source of, he continues, “No, I mean. I’m not going. I’m staying. Here. With the wall of magic and alleged ghost.”

There’s a beat of silence before Sasha raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s an objectively terrible idea.”

Coming from Tim, he would’ve brushed the comment off, but Sasha had almost as bad of a track record of poor decisions as himself. It brings into sharp relief just how reckless this choice is, but he just. Can’t imagine himself making a different one. “I’m aware, but, the location is the best I could hope for, and I genuinely loathe the tube.”

Tim throws his hands in the air, and starts to pace in that way that means he’s trying to work off a rapidly rising anger. “Fucking _hell,_ Jon! Who gives a shit about the goddamn _tube_ when the other option is to get fucking _murdered_ by a ghost!”

Jon places a hand on Tim’s arm to try and ground him. “I appreciate the concern, Tim, but I, I, genuinely don’t think I’m going to get murdered, at least not by the ghost. I mean, when it wanted my attention, at its worst it threw a pillow at me. If anything becomes more dangerous, I let you know _immedately,_ and I’ll get out of there, I promise. But, until the ‘ghost’ actually becomes a threat, I..this feels like my mystery to solve. I’m..I’m not much one for belief in fate, but this feels...surreptitious, to me. I just, I have to follow through. Plus, well, I really don’t want my rent to triple if it doesn’t have to.”

He lets out a long breath after he tells them all this, feeling oddly drained from laying out his admittedly shaky reasoning. Sasha and Tim look at each other, holding a silent conversation that Jon is somehow both annoyed by and slightly envious of. It’s uncomfortable, at least for Jon, but Sasha speaks after only a few moments. “Okay. I mean, I get, who can resist a mystery, right? But, seriously, keep your phone charged and within arm’s reach at all times, and call us the _second_ things seem even _slightly_ nefarious, yeah?”

Jon has no control over how soft his voice goes when he replies, “Of course.” He’s still not used to being understood.

With a sardonic bark of laughter, Tim pulls away and shoves his hands into his jacket. “I’m so fucking glad you quit the institute. You’d be dead 4 times over by now.”

“Perhaps.”

Sasha gives him a light punch to the shoulder and tells him, “So, with all that settled, me and Tim are gonna go for after work and now after magic drinks. Wanna come with?”

“Ah, no, but thank you for the offer.”

As Sasha heads out, Tim gives him a two fingers salute. “I can’t believe I’m saying this twice in the same day, but again, see you later, and don’t get murdered by spooky magic bullshit.”

“Ditto.”

After being left alone, Jon takes a moment to prepare himself, then he opens the door and crosses the threshold into his flat. When nothing immediately happens, he let out a breath and a large amount of tension from his shoulders.

Then he glances towards the couch, and, sure enough, he sees a rather cross looking, translucent person looking figure sitting there.

Well fuck.

It’s a ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES this is a jonmartin fanfic YES martin is sir not appearing in this chapter bc a: dramatic tension b: my physical incapability to apparently get Jon, Tim, and Sasha to STOP TALKING SO MUCH
> 
> Also if u wanna come yell at me my tumblr is i-run-a-trash-blog lol


	2. Chapter 2

Arms crossed and brows furrowed, its words are clipped when it asks, “So who were they?”

From a part of himself that Jon couldn’t even hope to identify, he notes that when the ghost’s voice is coming through in complete sentences, its actually rather pleasant despite its harsh tones. The rest of him is swept up in the feeling that he’s trying to tread water in unknown seas. He does manage to keep his wits about him not to go into any strong details, but not enough to lie in his response, “Some former colleagues.”

The response is enough, for some reason, to make the ghost’s body just..drop. Its mouth is agape, arms are unfolded, and eyes are wide as it says, “Holy _shit.”_

“Um.”

“What the hell did they say to get you to stop ignoring me?”

“Um?”

The ghost stands up and begins to face, using its hands to gesture emphatically. “I mean _seriously,_ it’s been fucking _weeks,_ and then you’re out for an hour and it’s all hunky dory? For the first couple of days, sure, I get it, okay. Helen apparently didn’t feel the need to be halfway decent and actually disclose that there were going to be two people in a one bedroom, and neither of us was prepared, but _fuck._ We could’ve, I dunno, actually _compromised,_ converted part of the living room into a second bedroom or something, instead of you just deciding to pretend I didn’t exist. That’s pretty goddamn rude to do to anybody, but to do that to someone you’re living with is beyond asinine! It’s just _cruel!_ We have to spend roughly 12 hours a day in each other’s presence, you could’ve at least _faked_ being _somewhat_ civil! Hell, I would’ve taken even passive aggressive, you know, normal fucking shitty roommate behavior over _this!”_

There’s...a lot to try and process in that rant, and Jon sort of. Doesn’t. Instead, he thinks the direct approach may be best here, and asks, “Are you not aware that you’re a ghost?”

The ghost stops dead its tracks, somehow staring at Jon with the entire weight of its body. “I’m not a ghost.”

Great. Fantastic. Brilliant. He not only has to live with a dead ..per..son?, but he has to tell it that its dead, because the universe loves to occasionally play grand cosmic jokes on him. “So, not aware then?”

The ghost continues to stare at him, and its expression rapidly flickers between belligerence and confusion. After one, two, three false starts, it finally settles on “Fuck _off,_ ” to express its current sentiment.

“I’m..sorry?”

“What is _wrong_ with you? What could I have possibly done to you to warrant not only weeks of existential dismissal, but when you _do_ decide to actually fucking acknowledge me, you decide to try and convince me of what? That I died without knowing it and have been haunting a crappy flat I have no real attachment to?”

Jon blinks, taking a moment to push past his hackles being raised by being yelled at to actually parse out what the yelling is saying. When he figures it out, it becomes his turn to be incredulous. “You think I’m lying to you?”

Placing it hands to its heart, the ghost adopts a falsely earnest expression as it replies, “Oh gosh, no, of course not. It’s _much_ more likely that I’m _actually_ undead than the asshole who’s been fucking with me for no goddamn reason has _continued_ to fuck with me for no goddamn reason.”

Jon wouldn’t necessarily call himself the most patient of people, and his nerves are already frayed from the whole “learning there’s a cursed ghost in his flat” thing. Perhaps a more even keeled person would’ve been gentler about explaining a ghost’s fate to itself, but as it stands, Jon snaps, “ Well in my experience alive people tend to me markedly less transcendental.”

He’s hoping that this will trigger a revelation, that the ghost will look down at itself and go, “My god! I think you’re right! I am a ghost!”. Instead, the ghost’s eyes flash with a concernedly intense anger before it schools its expression into something even more concernedly placid. “Alright.”

Despite the fact that Jon is rapidly flashing back to the ghost throwing a pillow at him and having the gut-churning realization that this ghost could absolutely harm him if it desired, he keeps his voice even when he asks, “All..right?”

The ghost shrugs, no longer staring at Jon in favor of carefully nonchalantly browsing the living room. “I don’t know what you’re deal is, and I don’t really care. I’ll just. Go talk to Helen, one of us will get out of the other’s hair, and you can continue your..weird little crusade on someone else.”

The ghost marches for the door, and as its hand lands on the doorknob, Jon has a sudden flash of intuition that this is about to go very, _very_ poorly. All he gets out is “Wait don’t-!” before the ghost attempts to pass the threshold of the flat and disappears in a puff of fog.

A few tendrils of water vapor continue to lazily curl in the entryway before drifting over to the floor. The swirling movement continues for a few moments before, just as suddenly as it went, the ghost pops back into existence, looking rather worse for wear. Its positioned on the floor, propped up on its hands as if it had been shoved backwards, and matching the shock of a blow. Its breaths are coming in rapid pants, and Jon wonders if its possible for a ghost to hyperventilate.

The ghost stares at the door, then Jon, then back again, before scrambling to its feet and making a beeline for the bathroom. The movement baffles Jon for a moment, because while he’s uncertain if ghosts can hyperventilate he’s near certain they can’t vomit. Then he remembers, duh, bathrooms tend to have mirrors.

A very soft “oh” comes out of the ghost, and he considers leaving the ghost to its privacy. However, he would challenge anyone in his position to not be the least bit curious, and he doesn’t think his presence will actually make things any worse. Following after the ghost, he is curious enough to gently knock on the open bathroom door as to not startle it, or, well, startle it any further. He figures finding out you’re an apparition is probably rather alarming in of itself. When he gets no response, he pushes forward to stand next to the ghost.

The mirror reveals a: just how much less solid the ghost is compared to Jon and b: that the ghost is utterly despondent over this news. It’s breathing has evened out, but for that matter all of its movement has evened out into the kind of unnatural stillness that comes from mournful resignation. The ghost’s voice comes out in a steady tone that’s cultivated rather than calm. “You weren’t lying.”

Jon shifts his gaze away from the mirror to the ghost directly and the trying not to drown sensation comes back to him in a rush. “No, I’m..I’m not actually particularly adept at lying.”

“Right.”

There’s a few moments of silence where the ghost continues staring blankly at its reflection before its face screws up. In a shudder of grief, it stutters out, “I-I-I don’t..I mean, I..”.

Jon doesn’t know what to say, but luckily he doesn’t have to say anything. The ghost gives a quick shake of its head and lets out a watery chuckle as it says, “On the bright side, my roommate is significantly less awful than I thought. Turns out he wasn’t _pretending_ that I didn’t exist, he just genuinely didn’t know it!”

The ghost’s voice goes high and tight at the end, and it still refuses to make eye contact, and Jon really does not want to know what ghostly crying looks like. However, just as the ghost seems like it’s going to enter a full blown breakdown, it scrubs its face and finally glances over at Jon. “Unless you murdered me, of course. That would be more awful than previously thought.”

“What?! I didn’t murder you!”

“I mean, it’s not the _most_ outlandish thought. After all, I don’t remember my death. You could’ve done it. Maybe having to be afterlife roommates with my murderer is some sort of infernal punishment.”

“I.. suppose? But why would I murder you? I don’t even know you.”

The ghost lets out a puff of air, considering for a moment before saying, “Well, I _think_ I started renting this place before you, so maybe you were that desperate for a below average one bedroom with spotty hot water and a beanbag chair that’s probably been here since the 70s. Or you’re one of those big city knife-wielding maniacs that you sometimes hear about.”

Jon’s befuddled by this ghost’s somewhat mercurial nature, but he far prefers this line of conversation over having to attempt to provide comfort. After a blink or two, Jon tells him, “I don’t think I have the upper arm strength to be a knife-wielding maniac.”

The ghost gives a loud snort at that, and Jon’s almost sure he should be offended right now. “You’re pretty funny when you’re, you know, actually talking to me.”

Now he _knows_ he’s offended. “I am not!”

“Are too.”

The familiar back and forth of a petty argument grounds Jon to such an extent that he prefers not to examine it. Crossing his arms, tilting up his chin, and turning his accent more arch, he replies, “I have been reliably informed that my sense of humor is either ‘lacking or nonexistent’.”

Granted, Tim had been the one to say that, and it was before he had gotten to know Jon, so “reliably” was a bit of a stretch. Still he wasn’t going to try and _elaborate_ for a _ghost_ that was (maybe?) insulting him.

However, instead of admitting its crushing defeat to Jon’s very solid argument, the ghost just _laughs_ in a way that borders on a giggle. It is _not_ endearing and the sound is _not_ even more lovely than the ghost’s regular speaking voice and Jon does _not_ want to make it happen again.

“Whoever ‘reliably informed’ you must not of known you very well, then. Also, even if that were true, not having a sense of humor doesn’t inherently bar you from being funny.”

Jon feels very seen, and that feeling _deeply_ irritates him.

“Shut up!”

This only makes the ghost laugh harder, and Jon’s being further annoyed, clearly, which is why his pulse has quickened. He uncrosses his arms so he can place his hands on his hips and _very_ sternly tell the ghost, “If you continue to act like this, I’ll be rather less inclined to help figure out what happened to you.”

All joviality flees the ghost, its eyes going wide with an emotion that Jon can’t quite identify. Its voice comes out much more gentler than Jon would’ve anticipated as it says, “You..you’re...going to help me?”

Good _lord,_ how was Jon supposed to deny the ghost anything when it was looking and sounding like _that_ at him. How was _anybody_ supposed to not want to take this ghost and wrap it in blankets and make it safe from the world? Covering up for the flush he could feel spreading across his face, Jon cleared his throat and needlessly adjusted his glasses. “Well. Yes. Obviously.”

The ghost stared as if Jon had just spoken in tongues. “Obvi...Why?”

Honestly? A combination burning sense of killing-the-cat curiosity and a penchant for taking on ~~rather good-looking~~ lost causes. “I used to be a researcher. It only seems natural to, erm, research.”

“Oh. Huh. Well, thank you in advance...”

It takes a moment to recognize the ghost’s silence as a question. “Oh! Jonathan Sims. I, um, prefer Jon.”

_Christ,_ he really just gave his full name to a cursed magical entity, didn’t he? Worse, the ghost gives him a small, genuine smile in response, and Jon can’t find it in himself to regret it. It’s truly a miracle that he’s survived this long.

The ghost tilts its head in an earnest manner. The motion makes its curls ruffles in a way that Jon has to actively try not to notice. “It’s nice to properly meet you, Jon. I’m...”

The ghost’s brows furrow and its smile rapidly turns to a frown. “I’m…..”

In less than an instant, the ghost goes from looking at Jon to looking at the mirror, eyes rapidly scanning back and forth. Its breath once again becomes a harsh staccato and its hand begin to violently tremble. When it speaks, it’s voice is fucking _broken,_ as if the words had been torn out of it. “I don’t _know.”_

Jon doesn’t get the opportunity to say anything, and he wouldn’t know what to say if he did. Panic appears to be contagious, and Jon’s own throat goes tight as the ghost lands harshly on the edge of the bathtub, tremors spreading throughout its inwardly curling body. “I, I, I c-can’t, I d-don’t….there’s...there’s nothing _there.”_

Jon gets as far as “I-” in what he thinks is going to be “I’m sorry” before the ghost snaps its head up at him, apparently just now remembering that Jon was still there.

Seeing its face, Jon notes two important details. The ghost is considerably more faded than it was even 30 seconds ago, and that its eyes are dangerously glossy. When it asks, “Can..could you l-leave? _Please?”,_ Jon is unaffronted. After all, he’s familiar with the deep shame that can come from being witnessed at inopportune moments. With a “yes, right, of course,” he makes a hasty retreat from the bathroom. After a seconds consideration, he decides he should give the ghost free reign of an empty flat for the time being, and promptly heads out.

Halfway down the hall, he decides he’s far enough away to compensate for the complexes complete lack of soundproofing. Leaning against the wall, he takes a moment to breather and assess the situation. Despite the attempt at rationality, there’s only one thought he keeps coming back to.

What the _hell_ is he going to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jon's hindbrain throughout this entire chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk954mlAcvM
> 
> also! if u like there's a playlist for this fic bc let they who have not made playlists for their writing instead of actually writing cast the first stone: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1bW7531mQQHtrRXgIhto2Z?si=TlXbpZpsTyyzrT7l-QpPYw


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're into content warning territory babes SO
> 
> cw: canon typical piss poor self esteem on Martin's part
> 
> cw: vague allusions to a potential suicide

Okay.

_Okay._

So he may not have a fully realized plan. He may, in fact, not have even the beginning of a plan. However, he does have people that might have information pertinent to the formation of a plan.

Georgie is the first to spring to mind, seeing as she’s always been much more enthusiastic about the paranormal than Jon, and thus significantly more well read on the topic. Yet, if Jon deigns to inquire about spirits and the like, there’s no reality where Georgie wouldn’t immediately jump on the _why_ of Jon asking, and he doesn’t have any reason but the truth. He’d get as far as “haunted” and “my flat” before she would be busting down his door. While he wouldn’t mind a rapid fire visit, it feels wrong, somehow, to invite her over without first getting the ghost’s permission. Putting it on display for the studies of a friend feels dehumanizing, exhibitionist to the point of churning his stomach.

No, Georgie will have to wait until there’s been a hefty amount of communication between him and the ghost. Next up, Sasha, who isn’t particularly caught up on all things specter, but always seems to have pertinent knowledge anyway. Plus, she’s even more doggedly pursuant of information than himself. Combine that fervor with access to the Institute’s resources (and a general lack of respect for digital privacy) , he’s sure she could find _something_ useful. Still, she could certainly find a hell of a lot more if he actually had the ghost’s name, so he tables her for the moment.

So that leaves..who? Tim? Same issue as going to Sasha. Melanie? Same problem as Georgie, and she’d be meaner about it. The last thing he wants right now is a camera crew in his flat, or Melanie’s much more pointed comments about his previous disparaging comments on ghost research.

Maybe he should just head back in? Try to get some more answers from the source?

No. Not right now. He made an implicit promise to give the ghost some privacy, some time to recover from unfortunate revelations, and he plans to stick to it. So now he’s back to square one, wondering how he’s supposed to help.

Letting out a sigh, he slides down the wall and forces his breathing to slow. Perhaps if he can settle his body, his mind will settle along with it. Even simply sitting down makes the disjointed, rapid fire thoughts settle down into snippets he can actually make sense of, and when he pulls up the notes app of his phone to organize said snippets, he’s successfully staved off the panic.

He starts off making a list titled, “things to find out”, but quickly deletes it as a topic beyond his current abilities to break down. Replacing it with “things already known about ghost” is much more manageable, relying on memory rather than speculation.

1\. Dressed in converse, jeans, and E·MO·TION sweatshirt

1b. died recently, on assumption ghosts can’t get new clothes

2\. English accent- Manchester?

2b. likely lived/died in UK

~~3\. Nice laugh~~

As soon as Jon types it out, he just and readily deletes it, muttering to himself about how this list is for _relevant_ information only.

3\. Retrograde amnesia

3b. death involved head trauma?

4\. Cursed + Magic

4b. ??????????

5\. rented flat b4 him, knew helen

5b. H E L E N!!!

That’s who he goes to. The second he thinks of it, he can’t believe that she wasn’t his first instinct. Sure, he hesitant to go see his landlord (or any landlord, really), but she _should_ have information on previous tenants, and enough lack of discretion to freely offer it. The distinct possibility that he will no have to go back to their place empty handed bolsters him into getting back on his feet and- Christ. _Their_ place. He’s known about his undead roommate for less than an hour and he defaults to thinking of the flat as a shared space. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

There’s about a 31% chance is actually in her office. It’s her regular working hours, which means she makes a concerted effort to be as unavailable as possible. He briefly considers texting her in order to set up a meeting in advance, but he’s also had enough interactions with her to know that’s even less likely to result in a timely conversation. The barging in approach it is, then.

This time, she is exactly where she’s supposed to be. Perhaps she could sense that Jon wasn’t coming to her with a complaint about his rental, so she needed bother to make herself scarce. The office door is open, and he doesn’t bother with his usual polite knock. Instead, he squares up his shoulders and tilts up his chin, striding in with his best impersonation of someone who owns the place and ready for conflict because of it. “Hello, Helen.”

Helen looks up from whatever she’s doing on her laptop and gives him a too wide smile. “Jonathan! My favorite tenant, how _are_ you?”

“It’s Jon, I’m fine, and I’m...almost certainly not your favorite tenant.”

The too wide smile settles into something wry and genuine. “You haven’t met many of your fellow renters, have you? No matter, what exactly can I do for you? I do hope that horrid little draft of yours isn’t giving you trouble again.”

It is, obviously it is, but at least Jon now knows the source is something Helen _can’t_ fix rather than _wouldn’t._ Or at least, he’s mostly sure that she can’t. The question almost seems pointed, like she might know more than she lets on, but he shakes it off. “No, no, nothing like that. I was just wondering if you might have the names of the tenants who previously lived in 42B?”

“And what _ever_ could you need that information for?”

Jon pauses for second, trying to think of something better to say than “Well, Helen, you see, I’m relatively certain one of them is haunting me, and it seems to have forgotten its name, so some I believe some real quick confidentiality violations would solve that in a jiffy.” Instead he goes with, “Um, they seem to have left some personal items behind? The items are handmade, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re of great sentimental value, and I’d like to return them. So, if I could have some contact info...”

Jon’s rather proud of the excuse, and it isn’t even fully a lie. There _is_ a box of beautifully intricate afghans currently residing in the back of his closet that he is absolutely not the owner of. Actually, huh, he had forgotten about those until now, he should ask the ghost about them. If they belong to it, they could potentially trigger a memory. In a somewhat failed attempt at stealth, he pulls out his phone and jots down “ blanket box ghost”, hoping that the note will prevent him from continuing to forget about it.

All the while, Helen studies him for a couple of beats after he puts his phone back in his pocket, and he tried not to fidget under her gaze. He can’t fully read her expression, and he’s starting to think that he’s been had. However, instead of accusing him of something sinister, she drops the intensity with a shrug of her shoulders. “Contact information’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Right, umm, of course, I’ll just-”

“But names couldn’t hurt. After all, if you could, say, look online and _happen_ to find an email or something for them, well, that would hardly be _my_ fault.”

“Oh! Yes, great! Thank y-”

Helen cuts him off with a wave of her hand and begins the list. “Let’s see, there was Maeve Jackson, Ben Fink, Steve Romero…,” Helen rapidly snaps her fingers a couple of times, “And _bugger,_ who was the one before you? My memory is usually impeccable, why can’t I recall anything about them?”

She brings her focus back to her laptop, squints at something on screen, then switches over to a physical binder thick enough to serve as a murder weapon. Jon faux patiently waits, and after about 20 seconds, he tries to determine whether or not this was meant as a dismissal. As he’s about to ask if he should leave, she shouts, “Aha! Blackwood, Martin. _”_

With a little lilting laugh, she expands, “Can’t believe I forgot him really, he was one of the tenants I knew best. Sweet boy, but rather short on cash. He’d do handyman jobs to make up for rent, and people always seemed to prefer interacting with him over me. I’d be more insulted by it, but at this point I’m aware that even a hint of fae ancestry will set others on edge, and Mr. Blackwood hardly shared that trait with myself.”

Helen flashes a slightly too sharp smile at him, and Jon reasons that distant magical relatives is not actually the reason people are on edge around her. Saying as much would do neither of them much good, so instead he asks, “And this Martin, he’s about yea tall, curly hair, broad shoulders?”

“You know him?”

Shit. “Er, yes. We are, or rather, we _were_ roommates, back in-”

"Jonathan, darling, I don’t actually care. Now, was there anything else you needed or...”

“No, I, thank you, that’s all I needed.”

Helen lets out a small “Mm, anytime,” already back to ignoring Jon’s presence. The send off does almost nothing to affect Jon’s mood, and as he heads out, he’s vibrating in his skin. A name. He has a _name_ for the ghost. Martin Blackwood. Martin Blackwood Martin Blackwood Martin Blackwood. The name seems _right,_ somehow, for the man he had spoken to. Something at once both comforting and literary, while it may not be the correct name, Jon can’t picture a different one for him.

He wants to burst into the apartment, demanding confirmation that the information that he’s gotten is good and true, and having both a reason to revel in his excitement and someone to share in that revelry with him. After about five leaping steps back towards their flat, he stops in his tracks and checks the time. It’s been about 15 minutes since he initially headed out, and that’s. There’s no way that’s enough time, right? Having a name, not just a name but a place to _start,_ a hope that they can actually find out The Ghost Who May Be Martin’s story, is unequivocally wonderful news. It doesn’t _fit_ with someone still in the throes of grief, there’s no room for the mental space it will take, so Jon decides to try and wait to back for the next hour or so? Judging by his own outbreaks of breakdowns, that should be enough time for Maybe Martin to have stabilized, if not actually improved.

Right. So. The next question is how he’s going to occupy that remaining time, and what to do with the restless energy that is thrumming in his veins. He wants full confirmation that Martin Blackwood is the correct name before he starts bringing other people into the investigation, but the local library _is_ open blessedly late. He doesn’t see an issue with cooping up in a nice corner there and doing some light google stalking of whoever Martin Blackwood might be.

Folded up with his legs to his chest in a beat up bean bag chair and with his face only a few inches from his face, Jon loses track of time, spending the next three hours learning next to nothing about Martin. As far as he can tell, the man doesn't have a single social media account, at least not any tied to his real name. This in of itself doesn’t strike Jon as odd. After all, all Jon has is a professional twitter that he was forced to make by the publishing company, and an Instagram Tim forced on him that he’s used maybe a total of 3 times. What _is_ odd is that there doesn’t appear to be any sort of obituary in the past year for Martin Blackwood, not within the greater London area. It would be enough cause for Jon to suspect that he has gotten the wrong name, but the one thing he _does_ find on Martin is suspicious enough for _something_ to be up.

Martin K. Blackwood does have a LinkedIn account. He cannot, for the life of him, get it to load. When he clicks the link, the page gets as far as the name and just stops, not even giving him an error message. The last 45 minutes he spends at the library is trying to access the profile across multiple networks and multiple devices to no avail. While his gut tells him this isn’t a simple technological issue , he decides he’ll try one more time and then directly contact IT support. On his final attempt, however, the page has disappeared, the only trace of Martin Blackwood on the internet throughly wiped clean. What the _fuck._ Somewhere between frustrated exhaustion from the lack of meaningful details and renewed certainty that he’s on the right track if someone or some _thing_ is trying to cover Martin Blackwood up, he figures it’s the right time to head back.

The longer he walks, the more the tiredness burns away, and he’s practically sprinting through the door. He calls out “Martin!” hoping beyond hope that the ghost will be present and respond to the name. His hopes are rapidly dashed as he realizes he’s standing in a noticeably empty living room. Wading with a mix of eagerness and caution through the rest of the one bedroom, it becomes abundantly clear that no one else is there, or at least no one he can currently perceive. As he circles back round to the living room, he tries to to stave off the slam of disappointment at the potential that the whole thing had sorted itself out while he was gone. Perhaps being made aware of his incorporeal status had caused the ghost to...disapparate? Cross over? Whatever it was that ghosts do.

Objectively speaking, he knows that it _would_ be a good thing, that he would get the apartment back to himself hassle free and the ghost would likely be where he was actually meant to be. Yet, he as left placing his hands on his hips, glaring at the couch, and left feeling unsettled and unsatisfied. Like he’s packed up for a weeks long trip and he’s shown up only to find out that it’s been canceled last minute. It’s not a sensation he’s particularly proud of, and it’s also jumping the gun. No need for him to panic just because he can’t immediately see the ghost. After all, it took weeks of In Potentia Martin floating around before Jon could even sort of recognize his presence, and it’s not like Jon has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things ghostly manifestations.

Despite feeling somewhat ridiciculous, he calls out once again, “Martin?”

He lets a minute pass, and nothing happens. Hmm. Third time’s the charm? “Martin!”

This time, he’s rewarded with a white mist swirling into existence right above the couch. After a bit of slow undulating, the mist coalesces into the form of someone lying down, rubs the sleep from their eyes. “Mmm?”

“Martin Blackwood?”

The ghost, _Martin,_ pushes himself upright into a sitting position, not yet fully aware as he yawns around, “Yeah, what’s up?”

Jon’s grinning like an idiot. He knows, for certain, that he has the grin of a feverish fool, because as soon as Martin’s (Martin!!!) eyes land on him, he raises an eyebrow with an incredulous, “Jon?”

Jon’s grin turns into a full blown beam as he simply replies, “Martin.”

Martin stares at him, but when he catches up to what’s happening, his eyes go wide and he lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “Oh my god, that’s _me._ ”

“Yep.”

“Martin Blackwood. My name is Martin. Mah-tin. Mar’in. Hello, what’s your name, _mine’s_ Martin Blackwood.”

Martin’s rambling with a breathless sort of exhilaration, but Jon can’t pretend that he begrudges him for it. Even if it wasn’t distressingly endearing, Jon’s in a rather similar way. It’s been ages since he’s had the sensation of doing something immediately and unilaterally _good,_ of finding a key piece of a puzzle, and he’s not going to deny his own giddiness at the concept. It’s why he forgives himself for the somewhat inane comment, “It’s a good name.”

“It’s a fucking _great_ name. Think I always liked it, one of the few things I did actually like about myself,” Jon’s smile dims ever so slightly, “ it seemed very, I dunno, like cultivated to me, or at least the Blackwood part did. Martin was more..homey? I guess. In total it was a very aspirational name, like, I was meant to go on some sort of grand adventure but also have somewhere safe and soft to land once everything was over. Maybe that’s a bit silly but- OH! I just remembered that I would in a ‘K’ as a middle initial.”

“Why?”

“Fun and flavor? I’m 99% sure I don’t even have a middle name, ‘Martin K. Blackwood just flowed nicely.”

That’s farcical. That’s absurd. That’s overly indulgent at best. There’s absolutely no reason that should make Jon melt a little, yet his smile goes softer nonetheless. He’s altogether much less manic and much more appreciative than he was when he first burst in. It surprises him, a little, that his current light-headed and light-hearted sentiments are not from the thrilling mystery that Martin presents, but the comforting company the man himself presents. He fortunate he is that, if he must have the misfortune of being haunted, he gets to be haunted by someone he gets on with. “That’s...ridiculous.”

Martin lets out a puff of airs through his nose, but doesn’t drop his ~~beautiful stunning dazzling~~ smile. “I never claimed otherwise.”

After he says this, Martin stands up from the couch, stretching his arms above his head and shaking them out. Then he makes his way over to Jon and sticks his hand how. “Time to finish that introduction. Hi, I’m Martin _K._ Blackwood, nice to meet you as well.”

If he were considering it in the harshest light, the gesture would be inane. However, Jon appreciates the attempt at injected normalcy, as if this was your average flat share. He squeezes his lips against a smile, instead raising his eyebrows and trying for a suitably arch tone. “I have it on rather good authority that’s not _quite_ accurate, but I suppose it’s good enough for now, Mr. Blackwood.”

Of course, the levity of the moment disappears in a puff of smoke, just as Martin’s hand does when Jon tries to shake it. They both stare at where Jon’s hand is attempting to clasp around nothing, and Martin lets out a “Huh.”

He pulls back his arm, and his hand frosts back into place. Pointer finger stuck out, he attempts to gently poke Jon in the shoulder. The gingers disappears, then reforms as he pulls away. “ _Huh._ ”

Martin quickly looks around, grabs an oven mitt from the kitchen, and lobs it squarely at Jon’s chest. _That_ is able to connect, and jolts Jon out of his silent watching to snap, “Would you _please_ stop throwing things at me?”

“Sorry, sorry, just...” Martin trails off as he swoops down and picks up the mitt from the ground. Putting it on, he once again attempts to poke Jon. Predictably, he fails, the mitt falling through the nonexistent hand. “H u h. So I, um, _super_ can’t touch you. That’s. Hmm. Are you? Wearing a talisman or charm or...something?”

Jon blinks, pretending the inexplicable sense of loss he feels at the phrase “can’t touch you” is instead relief. Should Martin turn out to be malicious, he’ll have less possibility for negatively affecting Jon. Shout Martin _not_ turn out to be malicious. Well. Oh well. “What?”

“I figure my current, uh, state is due to the manifestation of some sort of magic...thing, so if you have a protection against magic, it would stand to reason that I wouldn’t be able to, er, get too close.”

“Oh, I, yes, that makes sense, would make sense, but. No. I don’t have anything like that. My former employer strictly banned anything like that, and after I left, I never saw a particular need to go out and get something.”

“That’s...incredibly suspicious, don’t you think?”

Jon shrugs, somewhat compelled to defend the institute even though, yes, when he had first heard about that particular clause in his contract, it did seem incredibly suspicious. “We were researching magical phenomena. I suppose it would’ve been rather counterproductive to actively ward against the very thing we were trying to understand.”

“Hmm. I dunno, still _kind of_ seems like your job was trying to kill you.”

Jon lets out a sharp huff of a laugh. “Trust me, the thought certainly crossed my mind. God, I probably _should_ get some protection now, shouldn’t I?”

Martin nods, but the gesture seems more out of habit than actual response. “Probably an iron horseshoe for the door, at least.”

“Where does one even get horseshoes, let alone iron ones? Is there an outlet store? Do I order online? Would you happen to know any good suppliers?”

This brings Martin back into the conversation. “Oh, uh, I dunno. Never went for any of that stuff myself, I, uh,” he gives a weak chuckle, “I think I was kind of hoping that the fae _would_ come take me away, you know? Shouldn’t go about putting down roadblocks for ‘em.”

Jon’s face scrunches up into a frown, some revelations about Martin starting to come to light as the man resolutely does not make look at him. “About that-”

“Hey would you like some tea?”

The question comes with the abrupt speed of a verbal slap, and Jon’s voice is strained as he replies, “It’s...nine o’clock at night?”

“Okay, herbal tea then. I saw some in your tea cupboard.”

The words “Some chamomile would be lovely?” are pulled out of Jon with all the hesitation that comes from realizing one is in the midst of deeply unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation, his voice straying up at the end. Martin replies with an enthusiastic, “Great!,” and turns to start the kettle. The cheer in his voice is obviously forced, and Jon can’t reason out the why of it. Or, rather, he understands why the ghost would not be particularly cheerful given the circumstances, but he can’t puzzle out why he’s bothering to put on the air in the first place. The idea that Martin covering up something niggles at Jon more than it has any right to, considering that Martin is under no obligation to give him his truths. However, he’s nothing if not stubborn, so when Martin leads them back over to the couch with two steaming mugs, he dives right in. “Martin, I think there’s something wrong, and I think we need to discuss it.”

Martin settles against one end of the couch, one leg folded up and one leg hanging over the side. “Oh shit, do you think the apartment might be haunted? Cause honestly, I’ve been getting some _real_ weird vibes from this place.”

Jon goes to the other end of the couch and sits with his legs criss-crossed as Martin hands him a mug. He tilts his head and frowns in disapproval, despite knowing that it’s the exact sort of comment he would make if the position were reversed. As it is, he attempts a witheringly flat stare, and takes a sip of his tea to punctuate the look.

However, the sip has unintended consequences, distracting him completely from what he was supposed to be saying. Eyes wide, he states, “Good lord. That’s really fucking good tea.”

Martin lets out a startled bark of laughter. “Thanks?”

“No, I mean, this is _really_ fucking good tea. What did you even put in it?”

“Honey? With chamomile, I know, a revolutionary concept.”

Jon ever so slightly glares at Martin and takes another sip. It only serves to make him more dubious. The tea doesn’t just taste good, though it certainly _does,_ better than any chamomille Jon’s ever made for himself, it’s an overall sensation of goodness. Something about whatever the hell is in the mug elicits a sensation of comfort, the contentment of sitting next to a happily blazing fire on a bitter snowy evening. The paranoid part of himself harshly thinks _enchantment,_ but he quickly dismisses the thought. Perhaps it’s not the tea itself, but rather that someone else made it for him of their own volition. And that the someone is someone who, despite the bizarre and tumultuous nature of their first day of knowing each other, he finds he rather likes. Which makes the conversation he thinks they need to have all the more unpleasant.

Putting a pin in the mystery of the tea, he physically sets the mug aside on the coffee table, and shifts his body to be more directly facing Martin. “You seem unhappy. Um. You seemed unhappy. In life. I don’t know exactly how much you’re remembering, but the comments you’ve made about what you _do_ remember are concerning, to say the least.”

Martin’s expression is intentionally blank, and he goes to take a drink from his tea before remembering his undead status and letting it settle back between his hands. He watches the steam for a moment, then a wry quirk of the lips comes and goes on his face. “I don’t think happy people become ghosts, Jon. Does it matter?”

“Yes. Or at least. I think it does.”

“Hmm.”

They lapse into silence, both steeping in their own thoughts. Jon’s unwilling to be the one that breaks it, knowing that he has nothing to say without further input from Martin. To deal with the urge to speak, he brings his focus to his chipped nail polish, and begins to pick at it, and not so patiently waits.

The silence stretches a few seconds, to ten, to thirty, before Martin lets out a sigh that seems to come from his entire body. “It’s just..hunches, really. Fleeting thoughts that might add to something more. Not memories, not concretely, but, yeah. Don’t think I liked myself much. Don’t think there was much _to_ like, which might account for this, um _really_ strong impression of loneliness I keep getting. It’s like everything that I do remember, even the innocent facts like I don’t enjoy coffee and wine give me a headache and my favorite color changes on a whim, are tinged with melancholy. And, okay, I’m _certain_ that I was basically constantly broke, I think I remembered that before anything else, and that’s not, you know, great. Plus, I dunno, I’ve been wracking my brain over the whole memory loss thing, and it doesn’t _feel_ right on an intuitive level. If I had just lost the circumstances of my death, and the fact that I _had_ died, I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it. I mean, I’m far from an expert, but that doesn’t seem all that odd for a ghost. But everything? Even with the things that are coming back, there’s still these huge gaps that seem, I’m not sure, deliberate? Almost as if someone was actively trying to make me forget, and in light of everything else, I think _I_ was that someone. I- I think I did this to myself.”

“The amnesia?”

“No. Well, yes, but not just that. I think I did, um, all of it, that the reason that I’m a ghost at all is because I...made myself one.”

The words are a blow to Jon’s chest, and he wants, desperately to take one of Martin’s hands between his own. It is is with a bitter resignation that he knows he can’t, can’t even provide the simple reassurance of touch. The depth of his own anger, his own sense of injustice, of mourning, is shockingly consuming, making his throat so tight that he’s amazed he’s able to breathe, let alone get out, “Oh. Oh, _Martin-”_

“ _Don’t._ Don’t do that, don’t pity me based on a _guess._ ”

Jon swallows, hard, and insists, “It’s not pity. It’s sympathy and it’s..bereavement, that by the time we met it was already too late.”

“Why? Some hero complex thing? Think you could’ve _saved_ me?”

“No. Maybe? No, _no,_ just. I would’ve liked to know you. Before.”

“Yeah. Well. As I said, probably wasn’t much to like, let alone know. Pretty sure I was, how should I put it? Dreadfully dull.”

“Huh. I don’t think dreadfully dull people become ghosts, Martin.”

Martin’s sharpness leaves with the sag of his shoulders. “Hmm. Maybe.”

After a reverberant sigh, he continues, “God, I’m tired. I think I’m gonna call it a night, turns out manifesting for any length of time really takes a toll.”

The words certainly have the cadence of an excuse to get out of any more conversation, but Jon can’t help but wonder if there’s some amount of truth to it. He would prefer it not to be, that Martin could be visible effortlessly and indefinitely, but Martin _has_ faded significantly over the course of their conversation. He’s little more than an outline of a person, like the drawn representation of invisibility in children’s cartoon, and Jon has the terrible suspicion that it’s not deliberate on Martin’s part. All he can hope for is that the thinning out of Martin’s presence is a temporary condition brought on by exhaustion rather than a foreboding indication of the future.

Jon acquiesces, giving some generic comment about how he should also turn in, early start tomorrow, and makes his way for his bedroom. Once he actually is standing by his bed, fatigue washes over him, and he truncates his nightly routine in favor of getting into bed. As he drifts off to sleep, he tries very hard not to think about the reason that most ghost stories are inevitably tragedies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to imogen harris for making her character a landlord 
> 
> Also Jon Sims really is like. *meets a ghost* is anybody else gonna fall in love with that or...
> 
> Also also should I add the happy ending tag or would that give to much away lmao


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter got split in half bc it was getting long whoops hope u like talking
> 
> content warnings for this chapter:  
> Martin has a disproportionately strong reaction to a minor mistake bc uhhh trauma 
> 
> I think that's it?

Jon wakes up to the smell of bacon and the sound of somewhat butchered ABBA. Neither of those things are things he typically wakes up to, so it’s a bit disorientating to say the least. Then his sleep-slow brain catches up with his current situation, and he remembers that he doesn’t actually live alone.

Pawing blindly at his nightstand, he’s able to grab his phone to check the time. Wincing at the sudden bright light, he reads 6:25 am, only five minutes before his alarm would typically go off. Damn. For how long he slept, he hardly feels well-rested. Instead, his limbs are leaden and the grogginess is pervasive enough that it’s going to require an over-steeped cup of tea and a couple of ibuprofen to fix. And yet, his curiosity has always overridden any of his physical complaints, so instead of throwing the blanket back over his head until he’d be late for work, he finds his feet landing on the floor. Plus, well, he’d be lying if he said the off-key rendition of “Take a Chance on Me” didn’t alleviate some of his ails.

Shaking his limbs out and ignoring the morning chill, he makes his way from the bedroom to the kitchen. There he finds Martin standing over the stove, carefully monitoring a frying pan and bopping his head along with the tune. Jon takes a pause to stand in the doorway, simply enjoying a Martin that seems at ease in the moment. He looks good, better than Jon has seen him so far. The projection of his physical form is so dense that he doesn’t immediately register as an apparition. Only the monochrome gives him away, making him appear as though he’s been plucked from a black and white movie and pasted onto this reality. He is also, notably, wearing a jumper that was completely absent yesterday. Something about this detail sticks to Jon’s brain to the point of requiring comment, so instead of making a general announcement of his presence, he asks, “You can change clothes?”

Martin jumps, then turns around, spatula in hand. With a smile that would only be called beaming if you _under_ sold it, he says, “Jon, you’re awake! Good morning!”

Martin radiates a cheeriness that is both entirely at odds with where they left off last night and far more pleasing than it should be at this hour. “Your jumper is different.”

Glancing down at his chest and then back up, Martin replies, “Huh? Oh, yeah, I can wear anything that I owned when I was, er, alive. Tried to do the crown jewels and other things, it didn’t work. Seems rather arbitrary, if you ask me. I’m made of _mist,_ you’d think I’d be able to shape said mist however I wanted, but nope! Then again, I suppose a whole lot of the whole..ghost..thing is rather arbitrary, so whatever. Anyway, how do you take your bacon?”

Martin’s question confuses him. Martin’s everything confuses him. Something tells his that this would be the case even if Martin was a prototypical, human, alive roommate. “You’re cooking for me?”

Turning back to continue poking at the bacon, Martin replies, “Yeah? You gave me back my _name,_ this seems like the least I could do. It’s not exactly like I’m cooking for myself on account of the whole “not being able to eat” thing. I could, uh, masticate, probably, but of all the fictional ghosts out there, Slimer’s not exactly the one I most want to emulate.”

“Slimer?”

“Seriously?”

Jon shrugs, far too tired to try and defend his lack of pop culture knowledge. “I can make some assumptions based on the name, but seriously, don’t know who that is.”

“He’s from Ghostbusters, and, wait, actually, no. Don’t watch it. I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas.”

Martin winks at Jon, and Jon kind of wants to Yell about it like someone who’s spotted a particularly adorable dog. Swallowing down whatever _that_ feeling is, he states, “I, uh. I prefer bacon that’s not overly crispy.”

With a nod, Martin lifts the bacon from the pan and onto a waiting plate covered in a paper towel. “Then your timing is impeccable. How do you like your eggs?”

“Oh, god, Martin, I can make my own eggs, you really don’t have to-”

Martin cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “ _Hush._ How do you take ‘em?”

“My favorite is poached?”

“Poached! I can do poached. Or, I’m about 85% sure I can. I don’t think I was any sort of _amazing_ chef, but if the bacon is any indication, I can do the basics, and it’s not like poached eggs are a soufflé or anything.”

“ _Martin,_ scrambled is fine, or even better, nothing at all-”

“Jon, I got this.”

“ _Martin-”_

Whipping around, Martin levels Jon with something he has absolutely no defense for: earnestness. “Please, Jon, just, let me do this?”

The thought of anyone doing Jon a favor always makes his skin feel too tight, the knowledge of what any sort of help can result in always coming to the forefront of his mind, but he also understands the desperate need to do _anything_ to feel some control over a situation. “I...yes, all right. But let’s not make this a habit.”

Saluting with the spatula, Martin replies “Roger that,” then goes about filling the pan with water. After a moment, he adds, “I couldn’t even make this a regular thing if I wanted to.”

“Oh?”

Setting the pan back down on the burner, Martin notably does not look towards Jon as he explains, “I wasn’t lying when I said manifesting takes it out of me. I’m not going be completely non-existent for the next few days, but visually, yeah, not gonna be around, and I think doing anything much more involved than making toast isn’t going to be in my wheelhouse.”

“Oh.”

Martin must pick up on the disappointment in his voice, so as he adds a splash of vinegar to the water, he continues, “Tea making _is_ in my wheelhouse though! You seemed to enjoy it last night, so, uh, I can definitely make a pot or two every day. Won’t, you know, be completely useless.”

“What?! That’s not- yes, I would love some tea, I’m sure if you made it it would continue to be wonderful, but even if you didn’t, I’m not _upset_ at the idea that you wouldn’t be ‘useful’ to me.”

“No? Because when I said I wouldn’t be around, you seemed pretty, ah, frowny about it.”

Jon runs a hand through his hair and lets out a sigh. “I’m not _thrilled_ that you won’t be able to manifest daily, but that’s..that’s because I haven’t had a roommate in years, and the apartment was a lot more lonely than I realized, and it’s, um, nice, having you around. I’ll...miss seeing you, on the days that I can’t.”

It’s too honest, Jon knows it’s too honest the second it leaves his lips, even without taking Martin’s dumbfounded stare into account. Martin stammers out, “That’s, I, uh, that’s..” and then continues the stare.

His focus on cooking is so lost that an egg goes straight through his hand and splatters on the cheap linoleum flooring. This snaps Martin out of his reverie, immediately making him grab some paper towels and scramble towards the floor. “ _Shit shit shit,_ sorry! I’ll clean it up, I promise it won’t stain, I’m sorry, god, _shit-”_

“Martin, it’s okay!”

Martin’s scrubbing far harder the necessary, and his voice is high and tight. “No, it’s _not,_ but I’ll make it okay, I promise, because otherwise I can’t even do this _one fucking thing_ right, and it’s not like I can fix anything else! I can’t- I can’t _appear_ any more often! I wish I could, I _would_ if I _could_ but I _can’t_ and it takes _so much_ energy and I’m already so tired and I just, I, I, I-”

Jon knows, with a burning in his gut, that he can’t reach out like he wants to, a featherlight touch to the wrist to bring Martin out of his spiral. Instead, he sits down across from where Martin is past cleaning up egg and is on his way to wearing into the faux tiles.

“Martin.”

Martin doesn’t make any indication that he’s heard Jon, so Jon makes his voice ever so slightly louder, though still not far above a whisper. “Martin, please look at me.”

Martin halts his movement, the lines of his body harsh and stilted, before he slowly lifts his head. Eyes scanning Jon’s face over, his shoulders finally relax, and he lets out a shaky, long breath. “Sorry. I don’t..I don’t know where that came from.”

When Jon smiles in reply, it’s somewhere between wistful and wry. “That’s all right. I think I understand.”

“Really? Because I don’t.”

“I mean, one time I accidentally destroyed a bookshelf because I _thought_ I saw a spider on it. Sure, it was as flimsy as all crappy office furniture is, but I wasn’t even aware of what I had done until my coworker walked in to find me surrounded by slats of plastic, so. I think I’ve been there.”

“Oh. Were they angry?”

“No. Confused, at first, but she’s not the type to get mad about something like that.”

“Are...are you angry?”

“No. Of course not.”

Martin sighs, and Jon can’t quite read the sentiment behind it, but he hopes at least some of it is relief. Then, he stands up and mimics brushing himself off, and Jon follows him up. Martin gathers the paper towels soaked with runny remains of egg and tosses then into the trash, then looks back at the counter. “Good thing that wasn’t the last of the eggs. Round two should hopefully go a lot smoother.”

“You don’t have to..that is, it’s okay if you’d like to rest now. I can certainly finish up the cooking.”

Martin shakes his head, washing off his hands and getting back to the task. “No need. I would very much _not_ like to rest right now. I can stay visible for, oh, a good half hour longer, and I don’t particularly feel like disappearing when I don’t have to.”

His tone is flat and his shoulders are hunched in, and Jon gets the impression that he’s expecting something that’s not going to come. “I’m not upset with you.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t _expect_ anything from you, Martin. You’re not obligated to me in any way, and while I do enjoy your company, I’ll be grateful whether that company is only present every few days or every few weeks or once a year. It’s not a..a _failing_ on your part for how often you appear, and while I’m far from an expert on all things ghost, I’m relatively certain that ‘willpower’ or some other arbitrary strength measurement isn’t a factor into how all of this works.”

“You...you can’t be sure of that though. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I deserved this.”

Jon snorts. “You have no idea what you deserve. That tends to come with the whole amnesia thing.”

With a hell of a side-eye from Martin, Jon can feel the air in the room grow significantly lighter. “Prick.”

“Eh. You had to find out one of these days.”

Martin rolls his eyes, but it’s in conjunction with a smile he fails to fight off, and Jon feels pretty damn vindicated. Swiping the bacon from the plate next to Martin while it’s still at least a little warm, Jon settles down at the dining table. The food brings a strike of inspiration, and he has to ask, “You said that you’d be able to make a pot of tea, even when you can’t, er, show up?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, weirdly enough, moving things around takes more focus than energy, so I should be able to manage a cuppa just fine.”

“Do you think that you could use that ability to communicate, somehow? I would, or, it’d be good to um, be aware of your presence when I can’t see you.”

“I could write, probably. If you left a notebook and pen out somewhere.”

A split second daydream of notes involving smiley faces and affectionate phrases flashes through Jon’s mind, making him sound a bit too enthusiastic when replies, “Yes! Yes, I can do that, and that would be. That would work well.”

Martin lets out a genuine “Cool,” before plating the eggs and presenting them to Jon. He gives him a smile that makes Jon almost unbearably warm, and comments, "Bon appétit!”

“Thank you, Martin.”

Martin sits across from him, and together they can approximate an easy morning domesticity. “No problem. Like, seriously, no problem. I have literally nothing better to do.”

That’s when the reality of Martin’s situation strikes Jon. He wouldn’t call the flat the most stimulating of places under the best of circumstances, but to be trapped here for months sounds utterly mind-numbing. “Oh, um, feel free to use my laptop or the tv or really any source of entertainment you can find here.”

Martin winces. “Remember when your laptop inexplicably went on the fritz and then just as inexplicably recovered about three weeks ago.”

“Yes?”

With a little wave, Martin replies, “Turns out, not so inexplicable after all. Magic ghosts and technology don’t seem to really get along.”

“Shit, right, should’ve guessed. We had to do everything by hand at my previous job specifically _because_ magic hates anything more recent than the 1970s. I’m sorry, you must be terribly bored.”

“It’s really not that bad? I’m asleep more often than not, and, okay, yeah, there haven’t been a ton of thrills around here when I _am_ awake, but the notebook would help. I haven’t written in ages, it’d be nice to pick it up again. I think I remember being fond of poetry in particular.”

Before Jon can think about his words, he replies, “Ugh, really?”

“Yes, _really.”_

“Let me guess, you used to tell people the fake K in your name stood for Keats.”

“And if I did?”

“Then I’d say you have terrible taste in literature.”

Martin lets out a noise that’s halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “Fuck off, what’s wrong with Keats in your oh so highly esteemed eyes?”

“My eyes are highly esteemed, _thank you._ If you make the poor decision to get a master’s in English, you get a fair share of professors that were up Keats’ ass, which is why I can speak with authority in saying that he’s cloyingly dense and overly flowery.”

Putting on an exaggerated posh accent, Martin counters, “Oooh, look at me, I’m Jonathan Sims, I have a _masters_ in _English_ and yet somehow I don’t seem to understand that flowery language is a beloved cornerstone of poetry.”

“I _understand_ that perfectly, hence my distaste for poetry as a whole. God, just write some prose and get to the _point.”_

Martin’s hands slap down on the table, quick enough to be loud but not threatening. “ _Oh my god._ Oh my god! You may as well say that nobody should ever sing because it’s more direct to speak! Poetry isn’t _meant_ to be read the same way as prose, and trying to view it the same way as a narrative does a disservice both to the work and to yourself. If you want everything to be as as the crow flies, as quick and efficient as possible to tell you information, read a textbook, because literature isn’t for you. Poetry serves _emotions_ and _sensations,_ it’s an entire writing style dedicated to exploration and impact, and _that’s_ exactly what makes it interesting! I mean, sure, there’s a lot of bad poetry out there, but there’s a lot of _good_ stuff too, and while different things are going to resonate with different people, dismissing it wholesale is _incredibly_ limiting. Come on, you’re really telling me

‘ _Hope is a thing with feathers_

_that perches in the soul_

_and sings the tune without words_

_and never stops, at all’_

has _no_ more effect than ‘Oh, yeah, hope is stubborn, woo’?”

Jon takes a pointed bite of his breakfast, chewing with “deliberation”. “Well. I certainly feel as though I’ve learned something.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

Adding an obnoxious grin, Jon elaborates, “Actually, I feel as though we’ve _both_ learned something, and that something is that you’re a pedantic nerd.”

Martin’s ensuing sputtering only serves to make Jon’s grin more obnoxious. “Takes one to know one, _English major.”_

With a shrug, Jon replies, “I never claimed otherwise, and if you try to recite Keats to me, I _will_ exorcise you.”

“It’s demons that are exorcised, genius, that threat doesn’t make any sense.”

“Perhaps you’re a demon simply masquerading as a spirit, a la some interpretations of Hamlet.”

“Oh, you absolutely can _not_ refer to Hamlet after decrying poetry as a whole. What the fuck do you think the soliloquies _are?”_

“I _think_ they’re significantly more to the point than any of the poetry I’ve heard.”

“‘To be or not to be’ is _literally_ just Hamlet faffing about, to the point my arse.”

“‘Faffing about’?! You’d think a poetry fan would be more appreciative of nuance.”

“I _am_ appreciative of nuance, just not when it’s being shoved down my throat by am-dram students. ‘Sides, even if theater were my thing, Hamlet doesn’t really do it for me. Never been one for tragedies.”

There’s parts of that statement that Jon’s sure he could pick at, but the last comment takes the wind out of his argumentative sails. “No, me neither.”

They lapse into a silence that’s more contemplative than uncomfortable, Jon finishing his food and Martin simply taking the moment to breathe. As Jon puts his dishes in the sink, shooting a glare and an _absolutely not_ to Martin when he offers to clean up, he gets the strong sensation that he’s forgetting something. It’s not that he has to get to work, there’s still a good 20 minutes before he’ll be in a rush to leave, but there’s _something_ niggling at the back of his head. Neglecting an explanation for Martin, he heads to his bedroom to grab and scroll through his phone, hoping that his past self was helpful enough to leave something in the notes app to tip him off.

He’s in luck, as the first note is “BLANKETS”, and he remembers the box that had been shoved to the back of his closet that he wanted to ask Martin about. After a bit of rummaging around, he’s able to find and drag out said box. It’s warm to the touch, which seems odd considering his flat is rather consistently 2-3 degrees below comfort, but perhaps the closet is more insulated than the rest of the room. It’s also a fair amount heavier than he was expecting, so he half-lifts, half-shuffles the box the rest of the way to the living room.

In a rush of movement that clearly is Martin trying to cover up doing the dishes, damn him, Martin comes to hover around Jon, and prods the box lightly with his foot. “What’s this?”

Jon stands upright and, for somewhat silly reasons, pretends he’s not breathing any harder than before. “Blankets. And some shawls, I believe. It’s been a while since I packed it up.”

“Is it especially cold in here? I can’t, uh, really tell.”

It is, slightly, but that’s not the point of the excavation. “No, not anymore than usual. These aren’t my blankets and such, they were left by a previous tenant. I’m hoping that they might be yours, and that they might spark some memories?”

“Good call. Nothing immediately comes to mind, but let’s crack it open and see what happens.”

After grabbing some scissors, Martin kneels next to the box and deftly slices the tape that’s holding the top closed. Setting the scissors aside, he lifts the first item with an easy gentleness, spreading it in front of his face. The item’s a lacy, vibrantly multicolored shawl that’s as intricate as it is well-made. His eyes goes wide as he stares, recognition and something else Jon can’t fully place playing on his face. “Yeah. These..these are mine.”

“Oh, good! Can’t say I would’ve have taken you for the shawl type.”

Martin brings his hands down, letting the shawl rest in his lap. He faces Jon with a smile that crinkles the edges around his eyes and says, “No, they’re _mine_ in the sense that I made them. I didn’t know this 30 seconds ago, but it turns out I was somewhat decent at crochet. Tried my hand at knitting, too, but I tended to make a fair number of mistakes, and crochet was much more forgiving of that. Anyway, yeah, I _think_ this is a box of Blackwood originals.”

Jon sits down next to Martin, far enough away that none of Martin will wisp away, but close enough that he can take the ends of the shawl on the tips of his fingers to better study the weave. “Jesus, Martin, these are _incredible._ Wasn’t there an afghan in there that resembles a stained glass window? How do you even _do_ that?”

“It’s just following a pattern. There’s, like, 3 stitches in crochet, you learn those and then you do them over and over until you’ve made something. Hardly an outstanding achievement in art or something.”

“Bull _shit._ These are _stunning,_ they should—they should be hung up in a gallery for the world to see, not cramped in a cardboard box being slowly eaten by moths.”

“I agree with the cardboard box thing, you definitely should use something more water and moth proof like plastic, but, I don’t know. Even if they are something worthwhile, this stuff doesn’t belong in something as cold and impersonal as a display. All of these were made to be in homes and in use,” Martin’s smile flashes from twinkling to forlorn, “Though, they weren’t made for _here._ They were supposed to be gifts, I’m pretty sure.”

Jon drops the bit of shawl he had held, and speaks with a determination he hopes can relieve some of Martin’s sudden melancholy.

“Who were they for? I’ll get them to wherever they belong.”

Martin gives a rapid shake of his head, making his already wild curls even more unruly. “I don’t know who they were, but I do know that they didn’t want them. That’s why these all still here, I thought I could sell them, maybe, but was never actually able to make myself do it.”

Jon wants to insist that whoever it was, they was a _fool,_ but the shawl is being dropped on Jon’s shoulders, and he freezes in place. Smile returning to an unencumbered state, Martin asserts, “I’m glad I didn’t, now. I think that rather suits you, and lord knows how often you’re shivering. It’d be nice for this stuff to get _some_ actual use.”

The shawl has an immediate warming effect, _too_ immediate to have happened simply from trapping in Jon’s body heat. It’s a sensation not unlike what he had experienced drinking the tea Martin prepared, though it is more intense. Much like a cat caught in a sunbeam, Jon wants to lay down, stretch, and bask in the fabric. He’s comfortable and cozy and, when the shawl is combined with Martin’s soft tone, soft expression, soft _everything,_ utterly safe. Safe in a way that he hasn’t felt in years, perhaps not since he was eight years old.

He is also suddenly and terribly empathetic towards the protagonists of those corny romance books Tim had made them read for the “Rad Readin’ Researchers Book Club”. It’s all rather overwhelming, and it makes a panic rise in Jon’s mind that’s completely at odd swith the sated sleepiness that’s spread throughout the rest of his body. Before he does something stupid, or rather, something that’s a different kind of stupid, he throws the shawl off of his shoulders, and stands up quickly enough to make his vision go black at the edges. “ _Ihavetogetreadyforwork.”_

The flinch of hurt on Martin’s features might have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been simultaneous with him getting significantly more translucent. “Right! Sorry, I wasn’t thinking, that was, um, I’ll just pack this stuff up and you can, I dunno, give it away or sell-

 _Fuck._ “-No!”

“I..No?”

“No, please, I wasn’t. I love the shawl, and the blankets should go over the back of the couch and such. It would make the flat, um, much brighter.”

“Oh. All right?”

Before Martin can say anything further, Jon gives a curt nod and flees to the bathroom. He’s going to be slightly early to work, but that’s the least of his problems. He brushes his teeth, shoves his hair into a somewhat reasonable ponytail, changes out of pajamas, and heads out the door, all the while rather dutifully not having an anxiety attack.

That hits once he’s actually _at_ work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having a petty lit argument is something that can actually be so flirtatious.
> 
> The poem Martin quotes is “Hope is a feathered thing” by Emily Dickinson, and I recommend reading the whole thing, because imo it is VERY Martin and I have feelings about it. 
> 
> Also the stained glass window crochet afghan is a real thing that I own the pattern for but not the YARN and I WANNA MAKE IT SO BAD hhhhh
> 
> Edit: since people asked the Stained Glass Crochet Pattern is this one: https://www.anniescatalog.com/detail.html?prod_id=21741  
> and I imagine the shawl that Martin puts on Jon being something like this: https://www.anniedesigncrochet.com/2019/09/23/crochet-triangle-shawl-with-shells-free-pattern-fragrant-shawl/ tho not necessarily those colors


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who split the chapter AGAIN?! Lmao!
> 
> Cw for this chap:  
> Anxiety  
> Brief mention of vomit/throwing up- no one actually does though

Jon doesn’t know why he’s freaking out. Or, well, he does, he wouldn’t be thrilled to have a cru-

develop feel-

 _take an interest_ in his roommate under the best of circumstances, and these are decidedly _not_ those. What actually eludes him is why he’s freaking out _now._ This is the sort of panic that’s usually reserved for lying awake at 3am, not sitting in a recording booth desperately trying to make the words in front of him stop swimming.

While he can’t seem to make his eyes focus on the page, he’s distantly aware that he is somehow speaking out loud, though to be calling it reading is a stretch. The dull, droning intonation of his distracted voice is more befitting of a textbook than the...fantasy?? novel he’s supposed to be recording right now. The fact that he’s trying to talk through a too tight throat also doesn’t help matters, and he’s starting to get a bit dizzy from a surprising lack of air. All of this combined is why he doesn’t make it for very long before his producer’s voice comes through asking, “Jon, you all right in there?”

With a start that makes him drop his script, he replies, “Huh? Oh, I, er, yes.”

There’s a beat, before his producer, Lexa, says, “Rigghht. How about we take ten and get you some water?”

"I..I’m fine to continue-”

“ _Jon.”_

Sighing, he concedes, “A break might be beneficial.”

Lexa, and the publishing company in general, had always been surprisingly accommodating to their employees, a far cry from the Magnus Institute’s policy of “If you’re going to die, we prefer you do it off-site”. When he takes his head-phones off and heads to the break room, he finds the lights pre-dimmed, and Lexa waiting with a cool glass of water. He gratefully accepts it, only for the liquid to start sloshing, and that’s when he becomes aware that his hands are trembling. Not risking taking a sip, he sets the glass on the counter and folds his arms tight across his chest. The motion doesn’t fully settle his nerves, but he thinks it disguises the intensity of them, and he takes some comfort in that.

He should..probably explain himself. He doesn’t have an explanation for himself. It’s not as though he can go around saying, “Sorry about all of this, it’s simply that there’s this ghost in my apartment, you see. And, well, he was nice to me, and I think I may be handling it rather poorly, considering my body has decided to act like it’s facing down a bear and my mind feels approximately like how tinnitus sounds.” No, that won’t do.

Luckily for him, people tend to fill in the conversational blanks he leaves of their own accord. When Lexa gently asks, “Is this another migraine or something else?,” he recognizes the out. Plus, come to think of it, his head _is_ throbbing right now, so it’s barely even a lie. Giving a convincingly pained smile, he tells her, “Ah, uh, a bit of an ache. Nothing that won’t be manageable in a few moments, sorry for the interruption.”

Lexa snorts, and his heartrate spikes, thinking his dishonesty has been caught. A dishonesty _has_ been caught, but not the one that he thinks. “Yeah, that can range anywhere from ‘20 minutes with some painkillers, an ice pack, and lying face down on the couch and I’ll be good for a half day’ to ‘If I don’t get sent home right this second I’m gonna go throw up in the bathroom’ and, personally, I’d rather know now rather than deal with vomit smell.”

“Can it not be just what I said, give me a few moments, and then I’ll be fine for the _full_ day?”

“No.”

Normally, Jon would argue, downplay his discomfort to a brief headache that can easily be worked through, but the truth is he’s not in a state where he _wants_ to stay for another 7 and a half hours. “Half day, then. There’s no, er, sensitivity with this one, its hardly debilitating.”

Lexa gives a curt nod, tosses him a bottle of ibuprofen, and says “See you in twenty.”

The lie down and painkillers do, much to his surprise, help. Instead of the frantic loop of “ _ohgodohfuckwhatdoidowhatdoidowhatdoido”,_ his thoughts drift more practical, forming an outline of a plan. Sure, one of the steps of that plan may involve “convince yourself that Martin is just terrible, face-wise”, but at least it’s a concrete way of thinking, and he’s able to get back to stable mental ground. When he gets back to the booth, he’s still distracted, but in a way that allows him to actually do his work and get into the rhythm of the suddenly legible words until the half-day is up.

When he gets home around 1, he doesn’t immediately spot Martin inside. Hardly surprising, given their conversation this morning, and the lack of Martin’s presence somehow comes as both a disappointment and a relief. Instead of dwelling in either of those sensations, he heads to the bedroom to grab a notebook for potential communication. He knows the exact one to use, it’s been in his mind’s eye for the past two hours, and he has an inkling that Martin’s going to _love_ it.

It’s a gorgeous thing, black leather bound, pressed with a repeating filigree, page edges gilded with silver, and it comes with a matching fountain pen. In the sixish years since Georgie gifted it to him, he hadn’t once touched it. For one, he _knows_ that pen would be lost within a minute of him picking it up. For another, he’s never felt he’s had anything important enough to write in it. Grocery lists or research notes always seemed far too _mundane._ That being said, it’s about to be used for recording one half of what is essentially a ghostly text conversation, so perhaps mundanity shouldn’t have been a concern. Nevertheless, he does have a sneaking suspicion that Martin will get more out of it than he ever would’ve. Jon’s never been much for aesthetics (except for the aesthetics of cute ghosts, says an inner voice that sounds suspiciously similar to Tim).

Shaking off _that_ particular thought, he pulls the notebook from his cluttered bookshelf and makes his way to the kitchen. Trying to stave off a sense of foolishness, he places the notebook on the dining table, opens it to the first page, and sets the pen beside it. Once he’s satisfied with its position, he brings a chair round for him to sit beside the empty one, then too loudly asks, “Martin? Are you able to write?”

It takes a few moments, a few eternities, but the pen finally lifts of seemingly its own accord and begins to write.

_Yes :)_

Jon rather deliberately does _not_ melt at the fact that Martin actually does accompany his messages with smiley faces. He thinks it’s _silly_ and _immature_ and not worthy of the little wistful sigh that does _not_ escape from him. Jon pats around for an extra pen to write a response, before remembering, right, Martin can clearly hear him. “Good! That’s good. Can you, um, talk?”

_No :(_

Jon replies, “Ah,yes, th-that makes sense,” and then, because he can’t resist a _bit_ of teasing, adds “Big fan of emoticons, then?”

The writing speed picks up to a sloppy pace, some of the letters blurring into each other.

 _They’re a quick and clear way of portraying tone in a written message,_ _**Jon.** _

A pause, then

_> :(_

Jon lets out a breeze of a laugh. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

_Let me guess, you’re one of those people that always texts with Proper capitalization and punctuation, huh?_

“Not _always,_ but in some contexts, yes. Shorthand isn’t my preferred method of communication.”

_Tracks. Can’t really see you sending out a lol or OMG._

“Well, you haven’t seen me react to getting sent cat pictures.”

The pen suddenly drops to the table, and is snatched back up just as quickly.

_I Would Like To See That._

“Some other time. Though, speaking of cat pictures, I have a bit of a proposal for you.”

_> :3?_

Rolling his eyes and deliberately pointing the burgeoning smile away from where Martin is approximately located, he says, “Not quite. It’s, er, as you may know, I’m somewhat out of my depth when it comes to this whole ghost...thing.”

_You don’t fuckin say_

…

_Shit, sorry. I tend to get more uh snippy when I’m tired :/ I am also out of my depth when it comes to “this whole ghost thing” so. Yeah._

Jon inanely replies, “Snippy could be fun,” before his brain catches up to his mouth. Giving a pointed cough and scrambling to cover his words with more words, he states, “Anyway! The most frequent sender of cat pictures is my friend Georgie, and she’s something of an expert on all things spirits. I was thinking I could bring her over and she might be able to provide some much needed insight. Only, um, only if you would be all right with it, though.”

Jon doesn’t add the fact that if Georgie finds out he knows a ghost and didn’t introduce her, she will most certainly murder him. He doesn’t want to put any sort of pressure on Martin either way, but she absolutely will. If Martin says no to the meet-up, that’s completely fine, Jon will just have to learn how to get significantly better at lying by omission, or he will end up six feet under. Worse, Georgie will probably throw in a cheesy one liner as she does the deed, something like, “One way or another, I’m meeting a ghost tonight.” God, he’s so glad they’re best friends.

His worries are for naught, however, because Martin immediately writes _Sounds good!_

Oh. That's nice. Jon will live to see another day.

_I should be properly back to form on Sunday? Would that work?_

“I have to confirm with her, but that should be fine. I could call her right now, to check.”

_No!_

“Oh, um-”

_Sorry, just_

_Call her, but first, is everything okay?_

Only for a certain definition of okay, but, “Yes? Should it not be?”

_You sort of? bolted? this morning. I can’t quite shake the feeling that I did something wrong._

Ah. That. “What? No! I was just, uh. Running late for work. Had to hurry.”

_You left ten minutes early._

Shit, right. Martin’s technically been living with him for two months and change, he would know his schedule by now.

Scrubbing a hand through his hair and letting out a sigh, he tries to do some damage control that both lets Martin know he’s not at fault and doesn’t reveal Too Much. “My perception of time has never been the strongest, and it gets worse when I’m..stressed. Not that, it’s not, I’m not saying that _you,_ specifically, have been stressful, I’m just...”

_?_

“Overwhelmed. I _really_ don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m worried what sort of damage a complete lack of information could do. I think recruiting Georgie will help with that, but still, I can’t help but be ...fretful about all of this.”

_Oh_

_Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing **astonishingly** well! _

_I’ve gotten a huge amount of memories back in the past two days, and I’m almost certain that wouldn’t have happened w/o you._

_Plus, Christ, it’s not like I planned for any of this. I always thought that the line between alive and dead was solid, except for maybe a coma? Now I_ _**am** _ _an in between, and it’s hard to wrap my head around even when it’s my physical reality._ _Witnessing it from the outside_ _**must** _ _be odd, to say the least._

Jon makes a considering hum. It is odd, a bad sort of odd, though not for the reason that Martin thinks. Life and death being more muddled than previously thought isn’t what’s unsettling Jon, not really. No, it’s more the concern that there’s no possible way that this whole situation could end well for both of them. That’s a fucking bummer though, so instead of voicing those particular musings, he replies, “Not that odd. It just seems that you’re mostly dead, which is slightly alive.”

He gets a pen thrown to the face for that one, which is probably fair. The pen bounces off his forehead and lands in mid-air, Martin snatching it back before Jon can do any attempt at retaliation. “One of these days, I really do hope you’ll stop throwing things at me.”

_One of these days, I really hope you’ll stop warranting it._

“Wh-! I have never _once_ warranted it!”

_Whatever. Go call your ghoul friend or something._

“Ex-ghoulfriend, actually, though we’re still quite close.”

_WHAT?!_

Jon, bastard that he is, doesn’t elaborate, instead choosing to bound off for the bedroom to make his call in some semblance of privacy, always feeling awkward at best having to talk on the phone in front of others. He hears a pen smack into the wall next to him, which only makes him cackle before shutting his door. Filled with an obnoxiously giddy energy, he dials her. Georgie, one of those rare people who actually _likes_ phone calls, picks up after two rings with, “’Sup a doodle do, my dude?”

“Besides your increasingly bizarre use of slang?”

“Don’t be a cowabummer, Jon. My turns of phrase are totally dunkadelic.”

“Is this a bit? This feels like a bit.”

“It may or may not be a bit, it may or may not be the result of going down a weird linguistics rabbit hole, and it may or may not continue depending on why you’re calling.”

“I’m wondering what your plans are this Sunday.”

“I’m just catching up on editing. Melanie’s gonna be out of town, though.”

“Oh, that’s probably for the best. I’m actually, er, hoping for just you, actually.”

“Okay, Jonathan, full disclosure. Are you about to ask me to commit a crime?

"That was _one time,_ Georgina, and no. I was only wondering if you would mind stopping by my flat that afternoon?”

“Sure? Is this just a social call or..?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he says, “No, it’s-”.

“Yeees?”

 _Christ,_ better to rip off the band-aid, he knows, but that doesn’t mean he wants to _say it._ “MyflatishauntedandI’mhopingyoucanhelp.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. It lasts long enough that if Jon couldn’t hear some carefully controlled breathing on the other end, he would assume that he’s been disconnected. After what seems like several painful minutes but in reality is closer to 20 seconds, Georgie says, “If you’re putting me on right now, _I swear to god-!”_

“I’m not! Good _lord,_ why would I even lie about something about like that!”

“I don’t know! Maybe Andy put you up to this! Maybe this is your fucked up idea of a prank! I thought you didn’t even _believe_ in ghosts!”

“Well it’s a bit hard to deny when there’s one _living with me!”_

“Okay. Okayokayokay. Based on the hopefully reasonable assumption that you’re telling the truth, how haunted are we talking?”

“W-what do you mean?”

He can’t see Georgie, but based on her tone, she’s giving a vague wave of her hand. “You know. Is it like ‘stuff keeps getting knocked off tables’ haunted or ‘there’s a spooky glowing orb in my bathroom’ haunted or ‘I woke up to find a translucent person actively trying to strangle me’ haunted? If it’s the first I’ll bring over some of Melanie’s equipment and see if it’s actually anything, if it’s the latter, get the fuck out of there right now or I’ll come and physically drag you to our pull out couch.”

“The latter?-”

“WHAT-”

“ _But less malicious!_ No murder involved! It is a-a fully formed ghost, though? His name is Martin. We’ve had a fair number of conversions.”

“Wait. For real?”

“Yes. ‘For real’.”

“ _Fuck._ That’s so cool.”

Jon thought this whole situation was decidedly uncool, actually. Hell, he’d almost prefer a ghost that _was_ actively trying to murder him, at least then only his life would be in danger. “I’m not sure I’d use ‘cool’ to describe it, but I assume that means you’re willing to come over?”

“ _Obviously._ Do I have to even wait ‘til Sunday, because, no joke, I’m willing to shove The Admiral off of my lap to come over _right now.”_

Properly, thoroughly scandalized, Jon replies, “You _wouldn’t!”_

“I _would._ That’s how fucking cool this is.”

“Well. Don’t. While Martin is around most of the time, he has a limited ability to fully manifest. If you want to actually _see_ him, you’ll have to wait until Sunday.”

“Ugh. Fine. What time should I come over?”

“Does 2 work?”

“Am or Pm?”

“ _Why_ would it be am?”

“Oh, yeah, _I’m_ the ridiculous one for not assuming _the undead_ stick to a regular sleep schedule.”

Grumbling slightly, Jon replies, “Point taken. 2 _pm.”_

“Rad. Should I bring anything? I can bring the ghost hunting stuff, but kinda sounds like EMF detectors aren’t really what you’re looking for.”

Jon’s about to respond in the negative, but then he has a sudden stroke of genius. “Could you maybe bring The Admiral?”

“I sure could! Your timing is impeccable, he’s clearly been missing his dad.”

“His dad has been missing him. Give him treats for me?”

“He’s already so spoiled, but I _suppose_ I can indulge him a bit further. Is there anything else? I need to get back to pretending to write my next script.”

“No, that should be all. Have fun with that, and use fewer sound effects.”

“I will! And you’ll have to pry them from my cold dead hands!”

She hangs up as abruptly as always, and Jon feels a weight lift from his shoulders. Tossing his phone on the bed, he makes his way back to the dining table. As he approaches, he finds that the pen has been laid flat next to the notebook, and there’s a new note waiting for him.

_Went 2 rest. Good luck with Georgie! See u soon :)_

The smiley face at the end matches Jon’s current sentiments. Warmth spreading through his chest, he’s reminded of the effect the shawl had on him that morning. Idly, he wonders if it would still do that if he put it on now, without Martin being in the act of giving it to him.

The shawl has been placed on one of the arms of the couch, and Jon’s curiosity is getting the better of him. Tiptoeing over, he also notices a significant temperature drop as he approaches, meaning Martin's sleeping there. Careful not to wake him, if he even _can_ wake him, he extracts the shawl, and backs up a few steps. Taking in a breath to prepare himself for...something, he wraps the shawl around his shoulders.

The effect isn’t _quite_ as strong, but it’s _absolutely_ still present. His body is suffused with a pleasant heat that goes all the way to his perpetually cold fingers. The headiness, and the knowledge that he’s _safe,_ he’s _okay,_ and above all he’s _protected,_ make themselves rapidly known. Martin is currently as far gone from Jon as he can possibly be, yet the evidence of his existence still makes Jon feel like this.

He is in _so much_ trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u RQ for public releasing that what the ghost episode it has informed my georgie characterization so much
> 
> Also everybody that posts like 5000 words chapters once a week is WILD what kind of writing juice are they ON that being said I think next chapter should be up within a couple of days as its first draft is mostly done


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Georgie's here! With exposition! And a cat!
> 
> cw for this chapter: none? I think?

Other than the general restlessness that comes with waiting, the next few days are markedly peaceful. Jon physically goes into work both Thursday and Friday to make up for the half day and has a much better time at staying on the task at hand, even when accounting for the occasional, totally harmless, and fundamentally pragmatic stray thought that drifts back to Martin.

His evenings are much more comfortable and much less dull than they’ve been in previous years. While Martin is true to his word about being unable to show himself, he makes his presence known. Whether it’s through “self”-washing dishes, cups of tea, or the gentle scratching noise of poetry being written (which Martin will absolutely _not_ let him read. One time he tried to sneak a glance and the notebook slammed shut before flying across the room. Jon gets the message loud and clear, but damn if it doesn’t make his curiosity _burn_ ), Jon is _aware_ of the company. He also finds himself grateful for it, despite his previously held belief that he preferred to live alone.

As pleasant as the three days are for him, he can only hope that Martin feels the same. Jon’s certainly _trying_ to make the flat a less miserable place to be stuck in. On Thursday, with more effort than the thing really should merit, he drags out the small, cluttered bookshelf from his bedroom to the living room, giving Martin free access to whatever he’s accumulated. Martin takes to it immediately, pulling off: the one anthology poetry collection (borrowed from Sasha a good two years ago, still unread), several genre fiction ARCs gotten from work, a Harlequin romance Jon genuinely doesn’t know the origin of, and some nonfictions about mushrooms, the great vowel shift, and fae influences on 17th century architecture. A pile gathers on the coffee table, and they spend the next several hours doing an approximation of reading side by side on the couch.

Friday involves running off to the grocery store to get ingredients that he hasn’t touched in far too long. Jon’s a fairly adept cook, and when he idly voiced that he could teach Martin some recipes, he had gotten an immediate and enthusiastic note in favor of it. It’s a rare occasion that he makes an actual meal for himself, but keeping up the running commentary for Martin’s benefit is close enough to cooking for someone else that Jon knows it’s going to become a more frequent activity.

A large chunk of Saturday is lost to the 2000 piece puzzle he unearths from a somewhat musty box underneath his bed. Foolishly, he had assumed that they would be able to work on it for only minutes at a time, rather than getting completely sucked in. Even with Martin’s surprisingly fast assembly speed (the result of too many years spent relying on charity shops for entertainment), they spend a good 7 hours hunched over the dining table, and the state of Jon’s back makes him almost jealous that Martin doesn’t have to deal with a physical form.

It’s all very..nice. It’s nice. Some may call it domestic, but Jon personally thinks that term is a bit too _loaded_ to apply. It’s also mostly unproductive, giving Martin some snippets of memory, but nothing that could really be considered a breakthrough. Hence why, despite how content Jon’s been, it’s a blessed relief when Sunday finally comes around. Not only are they both going to get some much needed information, but Jon can admit that as much as he’s enjoyed Martin’s vague presence, he enjoys it even more when Martin’s form swirls into place wearing a nervous smile, at almost exactly 2pm. Cursing the sappiness of his voice and likely facial expression, Jon says, “Hi.”

Jon can’t curse himself _too_ much, however, because Martin matches his gentleness with the responding, “Hey.”

“It’s good to see you again.”

Some of Martin’s nerves fade, the smile settling more comfortably on his face. “It’s good to be seen again. Though, it’s not like I haven’t been around.”

“No, no, I know, just. It’s still good to actually look at you. You’re rather nice to look at.”

“Oh! Um-”

Jon is saved from both his burning cheeks and having to explain himself by a knocking at the door. In something akin to fleeing, he goes to open it, and finds the expected Georgie on the other side. The first thing she does upon seeing him is to give him a quick hug. The second, and much more important, thing is to take the cat backpack off her shoulders and release The Admiral into the flat, before standing back up and saying. “So. Ghost?”

“Yes, right,” replies Jon, in the exact manner of someone who had been distracted by a large fluffy cat. Holding the door open and stepping aside, he makes a sweeping gesture towards Martin. “Ghost.”

Martin looks up from where The Admiral had immediately taken to winding between his legs and gives a bashful wave. Georgie’s eyes go wide and twinkling as she says, “This is the best day of my life.”

Jon, who’s known Georgie for several of her Very Good Days, has to ask, “Wait, really?”

Shoving her way further into the flat, she grabs Jon’s arm and gives it a rapid shake. “ _Yes,_ really! I’ve wanted to see a ghost since I was eleven _bloody_ years old!”

Martin lets out a little laugh, voice slightly high as he says, “Well, I hope I can live up to the hype.”

“You can talk!”

“Yes? Is that unusual?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know! You’re a ghost!”

In the face of Georgie’s boundless enthusiasm, Martin appears to relax, which is the best outcome Jon could’ve hoped for. He...would really, _really_ prefer for them to get on. “So they tell me.”

Georgie replies, “That is so rad,” before making her way fully past Jon and placing herself in front of Martin with a hand stuck out. “I’m Georgie Barker, and you’re Martin, right? It is _such_ a pleasure to meet you!”

Martin glances down to her hand, over to Jon, and back down to the hand. Jon shrugs, and Georgie clearly catches the whole thing, prompting her to ask, “What? What was that?”

"Well, he can’t, er-”

“I can’t, uh, exactly-”

Simultaneously, they reply, “Touch people.”

Martin elaborates, “Or, at least, I can’t touch Jon? I haven’t, um, exactly had the opportunity to try with anyone else,” which hadn’t even _occurred_ to Jon. It would be beneficial, wonderful, even, if it turns out that Martin isn’t physically isolated from _everyone,_ yet the idea that Jon specifically is barred from touching him makes something ugly and bitter _seethe_ in the pit of his stomach. When Georgie replies, “No time like the present to find out, ey?,” Jon genuinely doesn’t know what outcome he’s hoping for.

Martin tries to shake Georgie’s hand, and Martin’s hand curls out of existence in response, only coming back once he’s pulled away. Jon, to his own horror, is relieved that it’s not just him, and Georgie lets out a sympathetic, “Shit. Sorry.”

With a shrug, Martin measuredly replies, “It is what it is.”

Uncomfortable with the now heavy atmosphere, Georgie offers, “Doesn’t look like The Admiral has any issue, though. Did you know that he _loves_ to be picked up?”

Beaming so brightly that Jon swears he’s going to go fucking _blind_ looking at him _,_ Martin asks, “Does he?”

Georgie, who has used this particular trick many a time, tells him, “He does!”

Without any further hesitation, Martin swoops down and scoops The Admiral into his arms, letting out some ~~adorable endearing~~ ~~ _enchanting_~~ embarrassing cooing noises. The Admiral responds in kind, first with a series of chattering meows, then with thunderous purring, and god _damn_ does Jon wish he had a camera. Georgie claps her hands together and brings them to her chest, looking for all the world like a proud cat mom. “Oh wow! He must really like you, he doesn’t usually take to new people so fast!”

(The Admiral absolutely does take to new people so fast, but that’s a fun fact that Georgie and Jon have collectively decided to take to their respective graves.)

Face buried in fur, Martin replies, “The feeling is mutual.”

“Since you two seem to enjoy each other so much, I _could_ bring him over every once a week or so, in exchange for an interview now.”

Martin gives an emphatic “Deal”, then lifts his head. Less surefooted, he adds on, “Not that- I would’ve said yes anyway? I don’t have to be bribed with cat visits, especially because you’re the expert, so it doesn’t make sense to not talk to you?”

Georgie gives a cheerful hum of thought. “In that case, I have a favor to ask.”

“O...kay?”

“Can you go invisible on command?”

“Yeah? Yes, I can.”

“I’d be very appreciative if you put the cat down, disappeared, and then walked about the room for a bit.”

Martin stares at her for a few moments, then, with great reluctance, gently places the cat on the floor and does as she asks. The Admiral watches him fade with rapt attention, then begins to track the movement of something Jon nor Georgie can see. Shortly thereafter, Martin comes back into view to tell them, “That cat was _watching_ me.”

Laugh bubbling up through her throat, Georgie, who has never once squealed in the entire time Jon’s known her, squeals, “I fucking knew it! Cats can see spirits, and I’ve never been more vindicated than I am in this moment!”

Clearing his throat, Jon gives a flat, “Georgie.”

“Right. Yes. Interview. Let’s do this.”

Georgie and Martin settle on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other, both of them with their legs criss crossed. Jon elects to sit on the floor, head pillowed on arms that rest on the coffee table across from them, content to let the conversation between one of his favorite people and what is rapidly becoming another one of his favorite people wash over him. He could almost fall asleep to the lull of their voices, but he resolutely keeps his eyes open to enjoy the expressions that flit across their faces.

Georgie pulls out a cheap spiral notebook and mechanical pencil from her messenger bag, straightening her back and softening her accent in an attempt at professionalism. Jon had been expecting a recording device, but it makes sense that she would be well aware that ghosts and tech refuse to play nice. Jumping into the interview, she asks, “So, Martin. What’s it like being a ghost?”

Martin blinks at the question before replying, “Fine? A bit boring, mostly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I _get_ that the whole haunting deal typically involves being stuck somewhere, but it still would’ve been nice to be stuck at a museum or a palace or a library or _somewhere_ with more to explore than a one bedroom. It’s, um, it’s been a lot better since Jon’s known I was here.”

Oh dear, doesn’t that just make Jon _glow?_ Georgie, thankfully, either doesn’t notice or decides to ignore the saccharine smile spread on his face. “Oh?”

“Yeah! He’s been amazing, actually, he handles living in a haunted apartment _way_ better than I would’ve! Not only is it a lot less lonely having him around, but, uh,” Martin glances over to him, “He’s-he makes for really good company. In general.”

_Christ,_ Martin is trying to kill him. Martin’s purposes are much more nefarious than Jon previously thought, clearly the man wants there to be multiple ghosts in the flat, because he is _trying to kill him._ Georgie, the best friend a person could ask for, doesn’t push further, and keeps her voice neutral when she says, “Sure. Anyway, when a person gets stuck somewhere, it’s usually not wherever most interesting for them, but rather someplace they have a tie or bond to. More often than not, it’s because that’s where they died, but it could also be than there’s something of great emotional significance present. Can you think of anything like that? Did you happen to die here? It can also be a combination of the two.”

“I..maybe? I’m near certain I _was_ living here before I died, but nothing comes to mind? As for whether I actually died here, I can’t remember anything abut my death, so while it’s the most likely place, I can’t say for certain? There’s a lot I don’t remember, to be honest.”

Georgie makes a noise of interest in the back of her throat, which prompts Martin to keep speaking. “When I started off as, um, a ghost, it was almost total amnesia, but I’ve gotten a fair amount of things back with Jon’s help. Most of it is odd details, like I hated roller coasters as a kid but now I’m neutral on them, but there’s still these _huge,_ persistent gaps that I don’t know what to do with.”

“Are the gaps about any specific subject?”

“There’s my death, obviously, but I’m not sure if that’s anything of note? But also places, and _people,_ especially people. It’s like, I could tell you about my favorite school trip as a kid, but I don’t know which school I was at, and I can’t name a single teacher or classmate. I remember loving to receive homemade perogis, but I don’t know who made them. Was it one of my parents? Did I even _have_ parents? And as much as I can remember the exhaustion of constantly working to barely get by, I have no idea _where_ I spent those hours, or who with. I know that people _existed_ in my life before all of this, but other than my fucking _landlord_ , I don’t know who they were.”

“That seems...rather particular, don’t you think? You can’t remember people from life, you can’t touch people in death, it’s _got_ to have something to do with your unfinished business.”

“I don’t...think I have that?”

With a snort, she replies, “You wouldn’t be a ghost if you didn’t, my guy. And I’d bet my bottom dollar that when you get your memories back, you’ll also know how to finish that unfinished business and cross over.”

Martin responds with an “Oh,” that matches Jon’s thudding heart. “And If I didn’t, er, want to cross over? From a, um, purely theoretical view?”

Georgie’s face turns grave, her voice painfully sincere as she explains, “Purely theoretically it’s...bad. To say the least. You could last anywhere from a few months to decades, but eventually you would either fade away until you end up nowhere or...”

In the same release of breath, Jon and Martin ask, “Or?”

Letting out a sigh and putting down her pencil, she tells them, “Or your spirit corrupts. Over time, you’ll lose everything that makes you _you,_ replaced with something vengeful, hateful, _malicious._ Not only will you be gone in every practical sense, but you’ll hurt anyone that comes in your path. It’s the souls that have been left too long, that have rotted, that cause the most damage, no matter who they were when they were alive.”

The following silence is a heavy, oppressive thing that none of them know how to handle. Luckily, The Admiral breaks it with a loud “mrrp” and a jump into Martin’s lap. Martin automatically begins to pet him, and all three of them remember how to breathe again. Georgie picks her pencil back up and twirls it around her fingers a few times before saying, “But. Y’know. That’s just what the stories say! And, hey, you’ve got time, and it’s not like crossing over is a bad thing. Unless, uh, you’re afraid of where you’ll end up?”

Shaking his head, Martin says, “No, it’s not that. I was raised Catholic, oh huh, I was raised Catholic, _all right,_ but none of it ever really stuck? At least, not beyond a hatred of incense and an inability to watch demon based horror movies. But, no, never really gave the afterlife any thought until the whole,-” and makes a vague gesture at himself.

“So, sorry to be blunt, but what’s the hang up?”

Martin goes very, very still, then quickly looks over to Jon, and _why_ is he looking at _Jon?_ “Dunno. Nothing, I guess. I suppose I just….don’t know where to start? I don’t have a clue what my unfinished business is, or how to get those memories back, and it’s ..sort of daunting.”

“That’s why I’m here! And obviously Jon is more than wiling to help, so at least you don’t have to go at this alone.”

Martin flashes into a more solid form, and a startled smile appears on his face. “Oh! I, that’s.. _thank you.”_

Georgie waves off the gratitude. “Yeah, ‘course. As for starting, we could look for some patterns. Is there anything in particular you find yourself consistently drifting towards? A book or a repeated pattern of behavior, specifically something that you wouldn’t have paid attention to while you were alive?”

“Not especially? I guess I sleep for a lot longer, a good twice as long as I did before, but I’m not sure if that’s the sort of thing you’re talking about.”

“ _What!”_

“Uh-”

“You _sleep?”_

“Should I..not?”

“No! It rather goes against the whole “unable to rest” thing that comes with being a ghost, doesn’t it? What is that even _like?_ Is it the same as sleeping like a human or is it all...weird?”

“Weird how?”

“Spooky weird! Too many nightmares or not enough nightmares or you always dream from the perspective of an old timely prospector who looks like your great grandfather or _something!”_

“I don-,” a realization, “Wait, yes, actually! It _is_ different than how I used to sleep.”

“Go on?”

“It’s...have you ever fallen asleep in front of the telly? You know how you drift in and out of consciousness, and you’re half-aware of what’s happening on the screen even as you’re also half dreaming, and sometimes you can even make out the sound of voices, but not distinctly enough to know what’s being said? It’s _similar_ to that, but instead of a tv or even the apartment, I’m somewhere _else._

It’s not a particularly pleasant place to be, but it’s not fully awful, either. It’s almost comforting, in the way that a heavy thunderstorm can be comforting. Not that it ever properly _rains_ there, instead it just has enough water hanging in the air to ensure that everything is perpetually damp.

It’s a beach, I think, though there’s something _off_ about it in a way I don’t think I can articulate. Like, the sky and the sand are this matching impenetrable grey, there shouldn’t be any visibility, yet I can see for miles. I’m somewhere high up, with a good enough vantage point that if there were any waves, I would see them, and yet I can’t, despite the presence of their dull roar. If anything, they should be close, almost on top of me, but I can never seem to face in their direction.

Speaking of the waves, they’re loud enough that they should drown out anything else. Even if they weren’t, I can’t find anything else that should make noise. And yet, sometimes I can hear a voice speaking to me. It’s not Jon’s, though that occasionally filters in as well, and, like I said, the actual words are indistinct, but it’s definitely the cadence of a voice. It’s a friendly one as well, a genuine friendly rather than one putting on friendliness. It seems rather opposed to the rest of the environment, almost like it’s there, I dunno, illicitly?

And...that’s it. That’s all I can recall about it. I don’t always end up there, some nights are dreamless, but I’m there more often than not.”

Jon and Georgie are wearing equally befuddled expressions. As Georgie lets out a mostly unconscious, “What the _fuck,”_ Jon blurts out, “You didn’t think to say something about this _earlier?!”_

Voice bordering on a squeak, Martin rebuffs, “I thought it was just a weird dream! A gentle recurring nightmare or something! It didn’t seem all that supernatural to _me!”_

Rubbing at his face with both hands, Jon replies, “Martin, you’re a _ghost.”_

“Yes, _Jon,_ I am aware of that, thanks!”

Interrupting their slightly...fervored discussion, Georgie barks, “Okay! How about we all just cool our jets a bit, yeah? This might even be a good thing.”

Jon’s flat, sardonic, “Sure,” is totally at odds with Martin’s open, “Yeah?”

“Yeah! I’m kind of flying blind here, but my best guess? I’d say you’ve already started the process of crossing over and the ‘dreams’ are actually sneak peeks at whatever’s on the other side.”

“Eugh, I hope not. I’d rather not spend the rest of my existence someplace so _dreary.”_

Jon mutters, “Shouldn’t have lived here, then,” which, predictably, earns him a glare from both of them. Georgie makes an aborted move to place a hand on Martin’s shoulder, before putting it back in her lap. “Look, it is only a guess. I’m clearly going to have to do some more digging, and who knows? Maybe ghosts have weird dreams all the time and the living never bother to report it. Or maybe it’s a warning, like ‘ _ooooooo, if you continue down the path you’re on, you’ll be cursed to forever stay at a shitty beEEaaacchhh’._ Whatever it is, none of us should panic, especially not without more information.”

“Okay. Yeah. Not panicking. But, er, in the meantime?”

“In the meantime, I would definitely say try to recover as many memories as possible. Jon’s been helping with that, right?”

“Right! Jon’s- Jon’s been _great!_ I know _way_ more than I would’ve without him. He-he’s actually the one that found out my name.”

Martin says that last sentence with such pride and praise that, due to something completely unrelated, Jon has to duck his head to study the absolutely _fascinating_ fake wood grain of the coffee table. Certainly, he doesn’t have to hide the fact that he might, maybe, slightly, be preening, just a bit. This, of course, does nothing to fool the person that he’s known for almost a decade. He knows he’s been had both by the way that she’s currently staring at him and her tone that is not quite sarcastic, but hardly effusive when she says, “Yeah, that’s our Jon for you. Always helping.”

With a movement so swift as to be startling, Georgie shoves her things back into her bag and stands up. “Anyway, I’m starved! Jon, let’s go grab some grub, and Martin, would you mind looking after The Admiral for an hour or so?”

Martin replies with a smile. “I _think_ that’s a burden I can bare, yeah.”

Jon replies with a stammer. “Oh, I, um, I could- I could make something here?”

Holding out a hand, Georgie pulls Jon up from his seated position, and tells him, “Jon, I love your cooking, but it takes forever, and I’m hungry _now._ Plus, I’ve been wanting company to check out a new café close to here, and Melanie refuses to come on the principal that it’s, in her words, ‘disgustingly twee’.

Jon knows that he’s not actually being presented an option here, but he still turns to Martin and asks, “You’re okay with this?”

Grinning and rolling his eyes, Martin answers, _“Yes,_ Jon. Even if I weren’t already plenty used to your comings and goings, in no universe would I give up the opportunity to hoard some cat cuddles.”

_Jon_ would like to be the one hoarding cat cuddles, and also perhaps all the time that Martin is this _present,_ but he concedes. “All right then. I’ll see you soon?”

Martin gives a little shooing motion, and Jon and Georgie head on out. The walk out of the complex is spent in an amicable silence, but as soon as they’re properly outside, Georgie lets all pretense of joviality drop. Slumping her shoulders and running a hand through her hair, she states, “That..wasn’t what I expected.”

Not really _wanting_ to let go of the lighter atmosphere, Jon tries to tease. “Not frightening enough for you? Would you have preferred someone in an all white tattered dress? More wailing, perhaps?”

To no one’s surprise, this tactic proves ineffective. Georgie fiddles with her earrings, a nervous tick that the two of them share. “Yes, actually! I mean, _crap,_ he’s just a bloke, isn’t he?”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket and trying to gauge where exactly Georgie is going with this, Jon only replies, “Mmm.”

“And he was so _lovely_ throughout it.”

Too fond, Jon tells her, “I think that’s simply how Martin is.”

Georgie finally looks at him, searching for..something. “You think he’s generally lovely, then?”

Getting the distinct sensation that he’s walking into a trap, he answers, “I..yes?”

With a quiet but adamant “ _fuck”_ serving as preamble, Georgie tells him, “See, that’s exactly what I was worried about.”

“Well I’m sorry that I’m not in more mortal danger, but I really don’t think-”

“ _Jon._ You that’s not what I mean.”

“Do I? Because you seem to believe I’m much more aware of what ever this conversation is about than I am.”

“It’s _about_ the fact that you should move out. You can come crash with Mel and me while we sort out a new place for you.”

“ _What?_ That doesn’t- because of _Martin?_ You know that he’s not a threat, Christ, you’re trusting him with The Admiral as we speak.”

“The problem isn’t with Martin himself, it’s your reaction to him. You admitting that you think someone is lovely is basically saying you plan on honeymooning in Scotland. I know that you’re Mr. Jonathan “packbond” Sims, liable to die for someone because they bought you a coffee once, but there’s nothing good that can come from the level of attachment you’re already at, let alone if it gets stronger! Honestly, you need some distance, and that can’t happen if you’re living with him.”

That’s quite a lot to process at once, so instead of standing there gaping, he says the first thing that comes to mind. “’Packbond’? Didn’t you say I was ‘a prickly bastard who wouldn’t acknowledge affection if it him on the ass’?”

“Oh come off it, that was five years ago in the midst of an argument over a cactus. And even if you didn’t take that with the huge grain of salt it requires, I’d still say it’s amazing how both of those are somehow true. You’re the only person I’ve met that has such an incredibly deep capacity to care and such little idea of how to deal with it. It’d almost be admirable if it wasn’t so fucking baffling.” Easing her voice to be more gentle, she adds, “And if it didn’t set you up for so much hurt.”

Something about the sad, sympathetic tone rankles him, causing him to huff and reply, “What is so bad about having a _slight_ attachment to Martin, anyway? Surely nothing that requires me to flee the scene.”

Throwing her hands in the air and speaking loud enough to get the attention of a few passersby, she states, “He’s _dead,_ Jon! _God,_ where do you think is going? How do _you_ think all of this is going to end?”

Jon knows. Despite the various indulgent fantasies that range from “Martin just sort of hangs out and it’s all good” to “Jon invents the first android capable of housing a human soul”, Jon _knows._ Still, “So, what, I should leave him alone to rot because my _feelings_ will get hurt? ‘Sorry about the whole being dead thing, but you’ll have to figure it all out for yourself, because otherwise I’ll be _sad?”_

“O _bviously_ I’m not saying you straight up abandon him, but would limiting your time with him _really_ be so awful? You can still exchange information and help him out, but continuing in the manner that you have been is only going to result in heartbreak.”

Jon’s shoulders curl in, and he directs his gaze to the movement of his feet on the pavement. “I’m aware.”

Georgie perks up for only a moment, before realizing that he’s not completely agreeing with her. “But?”

“But.. but I can handle heartbreak. I’ve dealt with loss before, and I know that grief is a much easier thing to carry when it’s not tied to regret. It’s going to hurt when Martin leaves no matter what I do, but the exit is going to be much less painful if I know that I’ve done everything in my power to help him. If some of that help comes in the form of keeping him company while he’s stuck there, so be it.”

“Jon, you- you know that he’s not your responsibility just because you happened to move into the apartment he haunts, right?”

“Of course not. He’s my responsibility because he’s my _friend,_ and because I can actually do something about his situation.”

Georgie pauses for a moment, then loops her arm through Jon’s, a reassurance. “Fine. Just...make it quick? The sooner Martin crosses over, the better off _both_ of you will be.”

As they round the corner, Jon gives the thought an acknowledgement, not yet willing to commit to either agreement or argument. However, as they move the conversation on to the, in fact, ridiculously twee set up of the café that Jon had been beginning to suspect didn’t actually exist, he silently acquiesces. Getting all of this over with as soon as possible is a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the siren’s call of puzzles is REAL this chapter would’ve been done two days ago if it weren’t for the accursed 1000 piece jigsaw in my kitchen rn also
> 
> Jon: it’s a bad idea to get a crush on martin   
> Georgie: it’s a bad idea to get a crush on martin  
> Jon:…  
> well now I am going to crush harder
> 
> Also also I am currently accepting guesses for who the voice Martin hears is. All guesses will of course be responded to with a >:3, but if u get it right you’ll have bragging rights in uhhh *checks outline* six? Seven? chapters


End file.
